INTRODUCTION. 



Our scientific knowledge of the Fishes inhabiting the Nile may be said to have taken 

 its origin with the work of Hasselquist (' Iter Palsestinum,' 1757), in which 13 species 

 are described from the Deltaic area or its immediate proximity. To these Forskal 

 (' Descriptions Animalium,' 1775) and Sonnini (' Voyage en Egypte,' 1799) soon after 

 added a few more. 



In the great work ' Description de TEgypte ' (1809-1827) Geoffroy Saint-Hilairt 

 father and son described and figured 29 species, from examples obtained in the Lower 

 Nile. Kuppell (1829-1832) and de Joannis (1835) made further additions to our 

 knowledge of the fishes of the Lower Nile, so that at the time of the former author's 

 third contribution (1837) the number of species known to inhabit the river amounted 

 to 55, including 9 from Lake Tsana, the source of the Blue Nile, which he himself had 

 explored in 1832. The fishes collected by Russegger in Egypt enabled J. J. Heckel, 

 in 1847, to raise the number to 67 species, excluding those from Lake Tsana, 

 a number which must be somewhat reduced after a revision of the synonymy. 

 Petherick, while in Egypt and the Sudan in 1861-1863, made a collection for the 

 British Museum. The fishes were obtained mostly at Cairo, Khartum, and Gondokoro, 

 and were described by Dr. Giinther in an Appendix to Petherick's ' Travels in Africa/ 

 vol. ii., published in 1869. The number of species had then risen to 89, including 

 those from Lake Tsana. 



From 1869 to 1899, when Dr. Anderson drew up his Memorandum, the fishes of 

 the Nile had been almost completely neglected. Taking into consideration a few 

 species described from the Nile by Dr. H. E. Sauvage and Prof. L. Vaillant, and from 

 the Victoria Nyanza by Prof. F. Hilgendorf and Prof. G. Pfeffer, about 100 species 

 were known from the whole Nile system when, at the close of the last century, the 

 Survey of the Nile Fishes w T as started by the Egyptian Government. 



Mr. L. Loat's work in this connection, lasting a little over three years (1899-1902) 

 has enriched our knowledge of the Nile fish-fauna by an addition of 30 species. A 

 detailed account of his operations, drawn up by himself, is printed further on. 



A small collection made by Mr. Zaphiro in the White Nile and the Sobat in 1904 

 has added one new species. 



In 1902, when attached as naturalist to Sir John Harrington's Mission to Abyssinia, 

 Mr. E. Degen made a large collection of fishes. He succeeded in rediscovering every 

 one of the species described by Ruppell from Lake Tsana and in adding 10 to the 



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