GILL] NOTEWORTHY EXTRA-EUROPEAN CYPRINIDS 323 
tion. Tristram tells that “at the Algerian village of Deichin, near 
Safed in Galilee, there is a large fountain full of this species. These 
fish are looked upon by the Arabs as sacred to Mohammed, and they 
will on no account allow any one to take them. A little to the north 
of Tripoli also, at the shrine of Sheikh el Bedawi, is a copious spring, 
with a large basin and streams flowing from it, choked with these 
fishes, which seem piled up in layers, with hardly space to move. 
They are an object of veneration, and are always fed by the worship- 
ers. They follow in masses any visitor as he walks by the edge, 
gaping for food.” This Capoeta is called by the Arabs Semakh nahri 
and is esteemed as one of the best fishes of Palestine. Tristram 
considers that “it is excellent eating, and its flesh is a pale pink 
colour.” 
Several of the other species of Capoeta (especially C. damascina, 
C. syriaca and C. socialis) are very abundant in the Lake of Gen- 
nasoret, the Sea of Galilee of the Bible. The C. damascina is equally 
abundant in the lower reaches of the Jordan and, according to 
Tristram Canon, is “ carried down into the Dead Sea in great num- 
bers, and perishes at once, strewing the north shore.” 
Another of the characteristic and very common fishes, but locally, 
of Syria, is a small species, a real minnow closely related to the 
European minnow and dace, but distinguished by the combination 
of the imperfect lateral line behind, the development of only nine 
anal rays, and the presence of only one row of pharyngeal teeth. It 
has been named Leuciscus libani as well as Phovinellus and Pseudo- 
Fic. 80.—Pseudophoxinus libani. After Lortet. 
phoxinus. It is “ generally less than two inches long ” and “ rarely 
reaches two and one-half inches in length.” It was “ discovered by 
Dr. Lortet in the little lake of Yammineh, a mountain tarn above 
' Ainata in Lebanon, well known to visitors to the Cedars from 
Bealbeck, and 4,800 feet above the sea. These little fishes, apparently 
the only inhabitants of the lake, at the season when the little stream- 
lets of the tarn are at their fullest, crowd into them, and form an 
