238 INDIAN CYPRINID^. 



supersede the vise of wings. It may be thought difficult to find among 

 fishes a terrestrial type ; but as water is the natural element of this class, 

 so the ocean is its metropolis ; and those kinds that are confined to rivers 

 and the interior of continents may be safely looked upon as more terrestrial 

 than the rest, and consequently so far equivalent in their habits to rasorial 

 birds ; and, while there is no instance of rasorial birds possessed of aquatic 

 habits, or, as Swainson observes, " frequenting water or even its vicinity,"* 

 so no species of Cypri7iidce is known to belong to the sea. In India the 

 Cyprinidce are exclusively confined to fresh water, mostly keeping beyond 

 the influence of the tides, thus evincing a propensity for land analogous 

 to that of Rasores. 



35. There is perhaps no point better settled in comparative anatomy, 

 than that the pectorals of fishes represent the upper extremities of the 

 higher classes of animals ; short pectorals may therefore be said to be equi- 

 valent to short wings in birds ; but it is a question of much interest to 

 determine fully how this applies to the case before us, and if it is to be 

 relied upon as a true analogy. 



In the Frog and several reptiles the scapula has been found by Cuvier 

 and Geoffrey to be composed of two osseous pieces, agreeing with the two 

 upper bones of the posterior frame or jamb of the branchial aperture in 

 fishes, and a third or lower bone assists in forming a girdle to which the 

 pectoral fins are fixed in Siluridce and most fishes of the same order, with 

 the exception of the Cyprinidts, and particularly the herbivorous section of 

 the family ( Paonomince). These bones were found by the most satis- 

 factory analysis to represent the humerus, or bone which gives support 

 to the third row of quill feathers in birds. Below this bone there is a stylet, 

 which in Cyprins is mei'ely imdimental. It was found by Cuvier to represent 



* Geog. Dist. and Class, of Animals, p. 259. 



