1871.] DR. A. GUNTHER ON INDIAN FISHF.S. 7(J3 



When, in 1857, the most important part of the collection of the 

 Zoological Society was purchased by the Trustees of the British 

 Museum, the register of that collection was fortunately obtained at 

 the same time. In that register every fish possessed by the Society 

 was entered, under a separate number, with the name of the donor 

 and other particulars ; but the name of Col. Sykes does not appear 

 once. Nor is there the slightest indication in Col. Sykes's paper in 

 the * Transactions of the Zoological Society ' that he presented spe- 

 cimens of the fishes described to the Society. The plates in the 

 'Transactions' were not made from specimens, but copied from 

 native drawings brought home by him. Col. Sykes appears to have 

 sent specimens of various fishes to the Museum of the late East- 

 India Company ; but, although I searched carefully that museum 

 (before and after the transfer of its fish-collection to the British 

 Museum) for types of Col. Sykes's paper, I failed to discover them, 

 There were other fishes said to have been sent by Col. Sykes ; but 

 they had nothing to do with his paper on the Dukhun fishes, and 

 were preserved in spirits. 



Thus there is sufficient evidence to show that no typical specimen 

 was placed by Col. Sykes in the collection of the Zoological Society ; 

 and I proceed to trace the history of the specimen of the Ps. longi- 

 manus by the aid of the same register. Two labels are attached 

 to it : — 



a. The round original label used by the curator of the Zoological 

 Society for the skins of fishes, with the no. 940 written on it. On 

 referring to this number in the register 1 find the following entry 

 in the handwriting of Mr. G. R. Waterhouse, then curator of the 

 Zoological Society : — 



'• 1834. Dec. 3. Pimelodus vacha. India. Presented by J. Wil- 

 lie, Esq." 



So much for Mr. Day's discovery that " it was one of Sykes's 

 specimens." It had been presented with others to the Society by 

 Mr. Willie in 1834 — that is, five years before Col. Sykes communi- 

 cated his paper to the Zoological Society. Further, on inquiring of 

 Mr. Waterhouse as to who had named it " Pimelodus vacha," he 

 replied that he himself had named the fishes in a preliminary man- 

 ner ; and for that purpose, and at that time, Mr. Waterhouse' s de- 

 termination was sufficiently approximate to the truth. 



b. The second label was placed in 1857 by the curator of the 

 British Museum, Mr. Gerrard, and bears, in his handwriting, our 

 register mark, and the name of Hypophthalmus goongarensis, Sykes. 

 Whether he, or somebody else who studied the fish after the publi- 

 cation of Sykes's paper, applied this name to it, he cannot remember. 

 The name having been latinized, it was probably done by Bennett. 

 However, this is of no consequence ; and the " transposition of labels " 

 which is said to have taken place is merely a convenient supposition 

 of Mr. Day (used by him not for the first time), without even a 

 shadow of probability in this case. 



For completeness' sake I may mention another fact which is passed 

 over in silence by Mr. Day, although it may have (unfortunately) 



