70 DR. A. GUNTHKR ON FISHES [Feb. 19, 



3. On some Fishes from the Kilima-njaro district. 

 By Dr. A. Gunther, F.E.S., F.Z.S. 



[Eeceived February 1, 1889.] 

 (Plate VIII.) 



Tlie fishes of the systems of the great African rivers flowing 

 north-, west-, or eastwards are sufficiently well known to allow us to 

 inake a safe inference as to the forms which inhabit the fresh waters 

 of the centre of the continent. Although many new species or even 

 new genera may be discovered, it can hardly be expected that they 

 will add a new distinct feature to what we already know of the 

 general character of the freshwater fauna of Tropical Africa. 



The difficulties of preserving fishes and of transporting them to 

 the coast will long continue to be serious obstacles to our detailed 

 acquaintance with Central- African fishes ; and therefore it is all 

 the more the duty of the naturalist at home to pay due attention to 

 the specimens, however few in number, which the traveller has been 

 able to get through the perils of a long and tedious overland journey. 



From the fresh waters of Kilima-njaro Dr. G. A. Fiscber, who was 

 sent by the Geographical Society of Hamburg into the Masai-country, 

 was the first to bring some fishes to Europe. They were described 

 by Dr. J. G. Fischer in the ' Jabrbuch der Hamburger wissen- 

 schaftlichen Anstalten,' vol. i. 1884, p. 27, et seqq. Dr. Fischer 

 seems to have obtained them from the waters flowing westwards from 

 the western slope of the mountain-range, whilst the two British 

 travellers mentioned below have collected on the southern and south- 

 eastern rivers. This may account, at least partly, for the diifer- 

 entiation of the species obtained by those travellers. 



Dr. Fischer's specimens belonged to four species, viz., Chromis 

 mossavibicus, Gthr. (closely allied to the common and widely spread 

 Chromis niloticus), a species of Clarias which Dr. J. G. Fischer 

 considers to be the Clarias mossambicus of Peters, and two new 

 species of Barbels, Barbus pagenstecheri and Barbus neufnayeri. 



To these four species I can now add four others. 



1. The fish first to be described here was disicovered by Mr. Henry 

 C. V. Hunter, F.Z.S., in Lake Chala, the Crater Lake of Kilima-njaro. 

 Mr. Hunter writes that no other fish was found by him in the lake, 

 and that the fish does not exist in any of the other fresh waters round 

 the mountain. 



The specimen is a dried skin, 1 Ig inches long, and in a good state of 

 preservation : it belongs to a form closely allied to Chromis and 

 Jlemichromis, but readily distinguishable from both those genera by 

 the presence of four anal spines. This new genus may be called 

 Oreochromis, and the species Oreochromis hunteri. 



Oreochuomis hunteri, sp. nov. 



B. 5. D. j|. A. /y. P. 15. L. lat. 3.5. L. transv. .5/1.5. 



The height of the body is nearly equal to the length of the head, 



