224 MR. F. DAY ON THE FISHES OF AFGHANISTAN. [Apt. 6, 



1. On the Fishes of Afghanistan. By Francis DaYj F.Z.S. 



[Received April 6, 1880.] 



In the ' Eroceedings ' of this Society for the year 1876 I was en- 

 abled to give an account of the fishes collected by the Yarkand expe- 

 dition. Observing how little was known of the forms inhabiting the 

 ranges of hills to the south and south-west of Peshawur, I applied to 

 some friends in India to try and obtain collections. These ranges 

 may be roughly classed into two : — the Suliemans, dividing the 

 Punjab from Afghanistan proper ; and the Beluchistan range or Halah 

 Mountains, extending from near Kurrachee to Quetta. Up to the 

 present I have not obtained any fishes from the Suliemans ; and as no 

 accounts of any captured there have, so far as I know, been recorded, 

 it is impossible to give more than a guess as to whether their fish- 

 fauna resembles that of the Himalayas or that of the Beluchistan 

 range, which two, as I now find, are entirely distinct. Dr. C. Duke 

 has been good enough to collect with great care and discrimination 

 some of the fishes from the highlands about Kelat and Quetta, 

 which I shall have to allude to further on. Col. Miles likewise seat 

 me, in 18/2, a small but beautiful collection from a river about 

 twenty miles inland from Gwadur, on the Meckran coast ; and what 

 increases the interest of these two collections is that some of the fishes 

 are identical species ; so that we may fairly conclude that their range 

 is extensive. I shall also allude to Griffith's collections, and one that 

 I personally made on the eastern or Indian side of the Beluchistan 

 range of hills. 



The first account which we possess of the fishes inhabiting Afghani- 

 stan is by Griffith, whose collection was described by M'Clelland in 

 the 2nd volume of the 'Calcutta Journal of Natural History.' Griffith, 

 in his tour, collected fish at Loodianah, Ferozepore, also from streams 

 existing in the watershed of the Indus, and likewise from that river 

 itself so far south as near Shikarpoor ; then proceeding through the 

 Bolan Pass, he continued his investigations to Quetta, at which 

 place the waters no longer find their way into the Indus, but become 

 lost in detail, or empty themselves into the Helmund. His next 

 researches were into the fishes of the Helmund and its affluents, 

 as well as those of the Cabul river and its feeders until it finds its 

 way past Jellalabad and through the Kyber Pass to Peshawur, and 

 so on to the Indus. I do not intend making any remarks upon 

 Griffith's researches in the Helmund or Cabul rivers, as at a future 

 date we may hope to receive some more fishes from those localities. 



The district I propose more especially drawing attention to is 

 a range of hills stretching from the valley of the Indus, their most 

 southern point being near Kurrachee ; and in their course they 

 divide Sind from Beluchistan. They tower one above another in 

 steps, and are continued from the south on to Kelat and Quetta, 

 the former being at an elevation of about 7000 feet with a European 

 climate, while they decrease in height to Quetta, where they are 



