:>. Fislies. 



By 

 EINAR LÖNNBERG. 



There is not much water in those parts of British East Africa which the Swe- 

 dish Zoological Expedition visited. The collection of fishes could therefore not be 

 large. Some few specimens were obtained when the Expedition crossed Thika river, 

 a tributary to Tana river. The greater number was, however, procured in Itiolu, 

 Luazomela, and Lekiundu rivers, small tributaries entering Guaso Nyiri from the 

 south, and in the last mentioned river as well above as below Chanler Falls. The 

 three tributaries mentioned are during the dry season when I saw them reduced to 

 quite shallow rivulets with somewhat muddy water flowing through the acacia-steppe. 

 Guaso Nyiri again has clear water and runs mostly in a sandy bed in which it often 

 expands to rather great breadth where the shallow sheet of water is interrupted by 

 low sandbanks. In some places again, the river has worked its way through black 

 volcanic rocks, the northern or north-eastern ends of former lavastreams from Kenia. 

 In such places the river is compressed into a narrow and deep canal with swift rulln- 

 ing water. Sometimes regular canyons are formed as below the steep Chanler Falls, 

 and 4—5 hours further down the river has cut through the volcanic rock and dis- 

 appears under a »natural bridge» of rock. The river-banks are fringed with doum- 

 palms and some other trees which have a certain resemblance to poplars. In small and 

 narrow side-branches of Guaso Nyiri small fishes, as Tilapia, were sometimes seen, 

 otherwise hardly any fish was ever seen in the water. When we crossed any small 

 rivers during the march I looked for fishes but never saw any. 



The collection contains 11 species. Two of these were found in Thika river 

 and both of them were known from the Tana river system before, and they are thus 

 of less in terest. From Guaso Nyiri and its tributaries 10 species were obtained. 

 These are of greater importance as very little is known from that region before. Three 

 appear to be new to science but the others are described before from different 

 localities. 



