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13. On Certain Local Names of the Fishes of the Genus 
Garra, 
By Sunper Lat Hora, D.Sc., Officiating Superintendent, 
Zoological Survey of India. 
(Read at the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Indian Science Congress 
a municated with the permission of the Director, Zoological 
Survey of India. 
The fishes of the genus Garra (= Discognathus) are charac- 
terized by the possession of a more or less well-developed 
suctorial disc on the under surface of the head slightly behind 
the mouth. Most of the species of the genus,' which are 
numerous in the hilly districts of India and Burma, inhabit 
tapid-running water and protect themselves against swift 
currents by clinging to rocks and stones by means of their 
suctorial disc. This habit of the fish, its form and the mor- 
Phological structure of the disc are the chief factors which are 
referred to in the local names of the species in various parts of 
India and Burma. In some species one or more proboscides 
are developed on the snout, and in some of the vernacular 
names a reference is made to this character. 
In Northern India (the Punjab and the United Provinces) 
pathar-chat is the common name under which these fishes are 
own. Literally it means “ stone-lickers’’ and obviously 
minute algae, etc., from the rocks and stone with the help of 
sharp jaws. These food particles are prevented from escaping 
Ips and are swallowed as they are set free. 
feeds moves up the substratum, thrusting itself forwards by 
hardly perceptible movements of its tail, but at the same time 
clinging firmly to the substratum by means of its _suctorial 
disc, Other fishes of similar habits such as the species of the 
genus Glyptothorax are also called pathar-chat. : 
There are two vernacular names of historic importance, 
lamta and godyari. At the beginning of the nineteenth century 
Buchanan found these names current in the Gorakhpur and 
Bhagalpur districts respectively. He evidently believed that 
the two names referred to the same species, for he says in his list 
of the fishes of the Gorakhpur district : ‘‘ The Godyari of the 
Bhagalpur list is here called Lamta.”? Moreover, he labelled 
a Hora, Rec. Ind. Mus., XXII, pp. 633-687, plates, xxiv—xxvi 
; Botany of Bengal in Hunter's 



? Day’s volume on the Fisheries and 
Statistical Account of Bengal, p. 103 (1877) 
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