INDIAIT AITD APEIOAN PEESHWATEE riSH-PATJKAS. 309 



logical Eecord,' unless in some instances of a few species, wMcli, 

 having obtained access into the latter publication. Have not been 

 counted in the enumeration in the ' Introduction to the Study of 

 Fishes,' or else it may be that some of the species in the ' Cata- 

 logue ' have been suppressed owing to further research *. 



Up to the present my time has been so occupied that I have been 

 unable to analyze the two statements, a very necessary work if 

 it is desired to know whether any, and if so where, the difference 

 lies. To the remarks I made in the Society's Journal I have 

 nothing to add, so in this paper shall simply refer to them. 

 " India " in my paper only including " India, Burma, and Ceylon," 

 whereas the "Indian region^' of Dr. Griinther includes "Asia 

 south of the Himalayas and the Tang-tse-kiang, and the islands 

 to the west of Wallace's Line." As I found in India proper 19 

 genera of Acanthopterygian fishes, whereas Dr. Giinther only 

 admits 16 genera in his larger " Indian region," of which mine 

 forms merely a little more than half, there must exist some 

 great error on one side or the other. 



I will first consider wJiat is a freshwater jisTi ? A reply to such 

 a question would appear to be easy. If a fish lives entirely in 

 fresh water, rears its young there, and never descends to the sea, 

 such surely would constitute a strictly freshwater form, as several 

 species of Ambassis, Grobies as Gohius giuris, Mullets as Mugil 

 cascasia — forms entirely omitted from Dr. Grlinther's list, altliough, 

 if his Catalogue is referred to, it will be found that he defines 

 the genus Ambassis as " small fishes living in the fresh and 

 brackish waters, and in the seas of the Indian region " (i. p. 222), 

 and he restricts some entirely to fresh waters. As regards the 

 genus Gohius, their habitat in the Catalogue (vol. iii. p. 5) is 

 given as " found on all the coasts of the temperate and tropical 

 regions, many species entering fresh waters, and some entirely 

 confined to them ;" and although Gohius giuris (I. c. p. 22) is 



* Dr. Giinther (Introd. Study of Fishes, p. 226) obserTes, with reference to 

 relations of the Indian region in freshwater fishes to that of the Tropical 

 Pacific, that the following must have immigrated from the former into the 

 latter — " Lates calcarifer, species of i^wZes, Plotosus anguillaris" and "species of 

 Arius." He continues, " All these fishes must have migrated by the sea : a 

 supposition which is supported by what we know of their habits." If he had 

 continued that all these forms are marine and not belonging to a freshwater 

 fauna, he would have been correct in the observation, and made the reader, who 

 has not been in the east, more readily understand why it was they should have 

 come by the sea. 



22* 



