218 



INDIAN CYPRINID^. 



2. Dr. Buchanan appears to be the only author who has devoted his 

 attention to the fresh-water fishes of Bengal, and his success seems to have 

 left little for others to do in the way of discovering new species. His 

 Gangetic Fishes, published in Edinburgh 1822, contains descriptions of no 

 fewer than eighty Cyprins, of which number he has only given figures of 

 twenty-one. And unfortunately, Cuvier appears to have adopted such only as 

 were figured in that work, leaving the rest as doubtful materials, which from 

 their extent, and the deficiency of the details connected with them, perhaps 

 deterred him from the task of entering into, or finishing, his account of the 

 Carps in the hope of receiving further particulars regarding them from India. 



3. It was partly with a view of supplying this deficiency that I devoted 

 the time we spent on rivers during our* journey to Assam in the winter of 

 1835-6, to the examination and figuring of species. The obscurity of 

 Buchanan's specific descriptions, which Avith few exceptions are chiefly 

 composed of characters of generic value, rendered the task of identifying 

 his unfigured Cyprins most difficult and uncertain. Nevertheless it ap- 

 peared to me to be a desideratum that must be accomplished sooner or 

 later by some one, and at length, after perseverance for the better part of 

 three years, occasionally giving it up in despair, I succeeded in identifying 

 most of the species unfigured by Buchanan, as well as in having made two 

 series of finished drawings of them, one set for England and one for India. 

 After all this, and after the present paper had been ready for publication in 

 April last, my notice was for the first time attracted by a remark of Buchan- 

 an, in consequence of which I thought it necessary to make inquiry for 

 certain drawings alluded to Pise. Garig. p. 316. I had heard of drawings at 

 the Botanic Garden, but never saw them ; and always supposed them to be 

 merely the originals of published figures ; but I confess I was quite unpre- 

 pared to receive at that time a collection of drawings from Dr. Wallich 



* I allude to the deputation of Dr. Wallich, Mr. Griffith, and myself to Upper Assam. 



