PREFACE. 



THAT part of the 'Fauna of British India' which relates to 

 Fishes is completed by the publication of the present volume. 

 Unhappily the author of the work has not lived to see it 

 appear ; the illness that, in the Introduction to the first 

 volume, was noticed as having prevented his correcting the 

 proofs, terminated fatally almost on the day when that 

 volume was issued. 



Indian naturalists will not soon forget the great additions 

 made by Dr. Francis Day to our knowledge of Indian fishes, 

 and they will assuredly join the Editor of the present series 

 in deploring the loss of one who, by the researches of a life- 

 time, by his numerous published works, and by admirable 

 figures, has rendered such signal service to Indian Zoology. 



The Editor has found it necessary in this second volume 

 and in part of the first, for the sake of saving space, to make 

 some slight excisions in the text, and to recast in many cases 

 the synopses of genera and species. As the author was 

 unable to revise the proofs, it is hoped that some allowance 



