Schistura. 



INDIAN CYPRINID.^;. 



439 



XII. COBITIS PHOXOCHEILA, J. M. 



t. 52. f. 4. 



This curious species has the head raised obliquely as in the Perilamps, 

 and the ridge between the eyes sharp and bony. Sides compressed, and a 

 dark nebulous streak extends along the lateral line on either side. Above 

 clouded with brown, beneath silvery. The fin rays are, 



D.8:P.8: V.6: A.6:C.16. 



The caudal is round, and crossed by several small bars. Found by Mr. Griffith 

 in the Mishmee mountains. 



SuB-GEN.— SCHISTURA, J. M. 



The species composing this sub-genus have hitherto been placed with 

 the Loaches, with which their habits and form correspond ; many of them 

 have also similar suborbitar spines to those of some of the true Loaches, and 

 all of them have small scales, and the surface of the body enveloped in a 

 copious mucous secretion like the Loaches, from which they are only known 

 by their bifid caudal, and the transverse bars or rings of colour that encircle 

 the body. This last remarkable character may be regarded as a remote 

 analogy to the structure of annulose animals, to which these fishes approxi- 

 mate by means of the Lampreys and Mixines, which Linneeus placed with 

 the worms. The resemblance between the mouth of the Loaches and that 

 of the Mixines is indeed so remarkable as to require only to be alluded to, in 

 order to perceive the relation between the two groups. 



The alimentary canal is somewhat longer than the body, the stomach 

 is short and lunate, the pyloris reflected and supplied with a valve. A bilo- 

 bate natatory bladder, divided by a longitudinal septum, is found in some of 

 the most perfect species, as Cohitis dario and Coh'itls geta, Buch. whose short 



