338 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [voL. 48 
The bynni, or benny, of the Nile (Barbus bynni) is the type of 
a group represented by about fifty species in Africa, having a very 
strong, smooth dorsal spine, five branched anal rays, and large 
scales (there are barely three scales between the lateral line and the 
ventral fin) ; the snout is very protuberant, and the anterior barbels 
about as long as the eye. 
The bynni was, in the time of the Ptolomies, named Lepidotus 
WNVERICH 
Fic. 100.—Barbus bynni. After Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. 
by the Greeks, or at least it has been supposed by E. Geoffroy Saint- 
Hilaire and others to be the fish so called by Greek writers, especially 
Strabo and Athenzus ; it was the object of veneration of the dwellers 
along the Nile, and shared this attention with the oxyrhynchus, a 
mormyroid fish. It is now highly esteemed for its flesh and there is 
a very ambiguous “proverb” which is intended to express that 
esteem: “ If thou knowest any better than me, do not eat me.’’ It is 
the special object of fishery at various places, especially Syout and 
Kené. Commonly it is eighteen or twenty inches long, but not 
infrequently attains a length of forty inches or even more. It was 
especially recommended for introduction and acclimation in France 
by I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. 
To give some idea of the extraordinary extent given to the genus 
Barbus by one of the ablest of European ichthyologists another spe- 
cies referred to that genus may be illustrated. It is a large, fine fish 
of Central Africa and has been named by Dr. Boulenger Barbus 
tropidolepis. By some authors it would be relegated to the genus 
