BARBUS (PSEUDOBARBUS) PALLIDUS. 



groupes must be acknowledged to be but very imperfectly known, and badly established. Of the various 

 families into which fishes have been distributed, there does not appear to me a second family in which the 

 characters assumed as those of groupes are more vague, or even so vague and imperfect as those which have 

 been selected to characterize the lower divisions of the Cyprinidce ; and I cannot, without hesitation, 

 say that I believe I have not myself, even in this Number of my Illustrations, contributed to increase the 

 obscurity and confusion. Be that, however, as it may, I feel convinced that it is not to the individual 

 who possesses only a very limited number of species that the Ichthyologist is to look for improvement and 

 reform : his expectations must be turned towards men who have the opportunity of examining and 

 comparing large collections of species ; and it is from them that he must expect light as to the proper 

 classification. 



"With respect to the three subordinate forms which I have ventured to characterize, and of which figures 

 are given in Plates X. XI. and XII., I feel fully satisfied only of the. legitimate claims of one Abrosto- 

 mus j the other two may eventually be referred to some other of the groupes already instituted, though I 

 confess my own inability to discover in the combined characters of any of such groupes the essentials which 

 would justify me in selecting for the South African species positions different from that in which I have placed 

 them. When some hundreds of species shall have been got together, the difficulties which are now expe- 

 rienced will doubtless be readily surmounted, and it will then be seen whether Cheilobarbus and Pseudo- 

 barbus are to be retained as component forms of the genus Barbus, or are to be translated to some other 

 genera. At present I regard both of them as forming minor divisions of the genus Barbus, and in my 

 opinion are to be regarded as two of its subgenera. 



