er, E 
Being occupied with many otber researches, !) I was 
obliged to give up my first intention to write a “Monograph 
on the Fishes of Sumatra”. But I think that somebody else 
will do so later on; this “Catalogue” will be of great assistance. 
What we know about the zoological conditions of Sumatra 
shows that this island has the most affinity with Malacca on 
the one hand and with Borneo on the other. With reference 
to the distribution of the freshwater-fishes on the island, it 
seems to me that our present knowledge is not yet considerable 
enough to draw general conclusions. In several provinces 
the marine fauna, which is not so interesting for our purpose, 
has been especially studied and the inhabitants of the freshwater 
haye been neglected, in other territories only few collections 
were made and in several extensive tracts of the land as 
Djambi, Siak and Atjeh only few or no investigations were 
untertaken. Therefore no comparisions can be made between 
the eastern and western coasts which are separated by the 
Barisan mountains. As to the relationship between Sumatra 
and the neighbouring islands we risk no conclusions because 
the data up to the present is far too meagre. 
The classification, I- follow, is that of GüxTHER and 
BOULENGER. ?) Although we have a new system ?) I prefered 
the elassification of the Catalogue of the British Museum 
entirely from a practical point of view. For that reason I 
have referred to the catalogue of GüNTHER because there is 
gathered together all the special bibliography. The fact that 
BLEEKER (18) has pictured in a wonderful manner most of our 
Species, caused me to cite also this work, because by it it 
is possible to facilitate the determination in a high degree. 
Out of these I noted only the quotations of treatises concerning 
the fishes of Sumatra. 5) I may remark that several old papers 
D See “Zoologische Jahrbücher" of Prof. J. W. Spencer. 
3) Catalogue of the British Musenm, 
D BRIDGE and BOULENGER, The Cambridge Natural History, Fishes, London 1904. 
D See the list hereafter. 
E TEE 
