Proceedings of the British Association, 131 



and was most probably an ancient form of the Serpulinse. From a 

 similarity of structure in the Tentaculites, another abundant fossil of 

 the Silurian rocks, Mr. Salter is disposed to refer it to the same group 

 with Cornulites. 



Section D.— ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY. 



Dr. Richardson read a Report, which had been called for by the 

 Section, ' On the Ichthyology of China/ Till within a recent period, 

 little was known of Chinese fishes. Linnaeus was acquainted with 

 about a score of Japanese fish ; and a few were afterwards added to 

 the list by LangsdorfY, who accompanied the Russian admiral, Kne- 

 senstiern, in his voyage to the Isles of Japan and the South Sea. 

 With these exceptions, the fish of the eastern coasts of Asia, from 

 the Sea of Ochotsic down to Cochin China, were, till very recently, 

 known to European naturalists only from Chinese and Japanese 

 drawings, several collections of which are to be found in the Paris 

 and British libraries. Yet the fish of the coasts of China are abun- 

 dant, and the fisheries extensive and important. Materials for the 

 description of these fishes were not wanting. Mr. John Reeves had 

 beautiful coloured drawings, mostly of the size of life, made of no 

 fewer than 340 species of fish which are brought to the markets in 

 Canton. Copies of these drawings now exist in the British Museum. 

 Some fishes have been recently sent from Chusan ; other Chinese 

 fishes have been described in the account of the voyage of the Sul- 

 phur. A collection of 100 fishes made at Canton, exists in the 

 Museum of the Philosophical Society of Cambridge. From these 

 and other recent sources, the present report was drawn up. The 

 author concluded from his researches that the existence of chains of 

 islands or of continuous coast having an east and west tendency 

 promotes the range of a species or of a group of species. Thus, to 

 take the intertropical zone of the ocean, we find very many fish 

 common to the Red Sea, the coasts of Madagascar, the Mauritius, 

 the Indian Ocean, the southern parts of China, the Philippines, the 

 whole Malay Archipelago, the north coasts of Australia, and the 

 entire range of Polynesia, including the Sandwich Islands. In the 

 generic forms of its fresh-water fish, China agrees closely with the 

 peninsula of India. . If we could suppose that the extensive belt 



