316 report — 1845. 



fibres. The specks however are not confined to these lines. The belly is without specks, 

 but is marked by fine oblique brown lines which meet on the mesial line beneath, in an acute 

 angle, and thus produce a series of chevrons reaching from the gill-opening to the anus. 



I had given a specific name to Dr. Cantor's specimen, which was altered to marmoratus, on 

 a Monopterus so named by the authors of the ' Fauna Japonica,' having reached the British 

 Museum. This fish is 23 inches in length, and the vent is rather farther back than in the 

 Chinese example, being only 3*2 inches distant from the point of the tail. Three rays ap- 

 peared very obscurely in the extreme tip of the tail. 



Hab. Chusan. 



Monopterus? helvolus. Icon. Reeves, t. nullo numero; Hardw. 312. 



The figure represents a fish with a depressed head, a blunt snout, no nasal tubes, and the 

 general form of the preceding Monopteri. The position of the anal aperture is not indicated. 

 The colour is rich reddish-orange, like that of the Cyprinus miratus, varied only by a series 

 of black dots along the lateral line. Eye small, silvery, and placed rather high. 



Hab. Canton. 



Ophicardia xanthognatha, Richardson (Monopterus), Ichth. Voy. 

 Sulph. p. 118. pi. 52. f. 7. Icon. Reeves, 221; Hardw. Malac. 311. 

 Chinese name, Hwang sae shen (Birch); Wang sae shen, " Yellow-jawed 

 eel" (Reeves). Genus, Ophicardia, M'Clelland. 



We have seen no specimen of this fish, and we were unable at the time of the publication 

 of the ' Ichthyology of the Voyage of the Sulphur,' to place in it its proper genus ; but having 

 since received Mr. M'Clelland's important paper on the Apodal fishes of Bengal, and com- 

 pared his outline figure and account of Ophicardia phayriana with Mr. Reeves's drawing, we 

 have no doubt of both being members of one genus. In the Chinese fish the mouth is cleft 

 rather farther past the eye, and this is the chief external difference between it and phayriana. 



Hab. Canton. 



ADDENDA. 



The preceding report was drawn up before any portion of the Ichthyology 

 of the ' Fauna Japonica' had reached this country, but as the successive 

 decades of that important work came out, the new scientific names therein 

 published have been substituted for those which I had previously imposed, 

 the descriptions of such species have been struck out, and the Japanese fish 

 which had not been detected on the coasts of China were added. I have 

 also availed myself of the specimens of Japanese fish which the British Mu- 

 seum has from time to time received from Germany, and have adopted the 

 names on their several labels. But notwithstanding every exertion to avoid 

 the introduction of synonymous appellations, this evil cannot be entirely 

 averted, in cases like the present, when several works on the same subjects 

 are coming out simultaneously. In some instances the names proposed by 

 English ichthyologists have the priority over those used in the ' Fauna Ja- 

 ponica,' the authors of this work having probably had no opportunity of 

 consulting the papers of Dr. Cantor and of John M'Clelland, Esq., of the 

 Bengal Medical Service, published in India. There is also some interference 

 of names between the ' Fauna Japonica' and the * Ichthyology of the Voyage 

 of the Sulphur,' composed of three fasciculi, of which the first one was pub- 

 lished in April 1844, and the third in October 184-5. I may add also that 

 the genus Hoplegnathus proposed by me in March 184-1, and published in 

 the Transactions of the Zoological Society of London in 184-2, is identical 

 with the Scarodon of the ' Fauna Japonica.' The tenth decade of this latter 

 work was brought to this country in March 1846, by its publisher, when the 

 seventh sheet of the Report was in the press, and it is therefore necessary to 

 make such corrections and additions to the previous sheets as are requisite 



