Indian Cyprinidce. 



113 



read to the Asiatic Society in Sept., 1838, and published in their 

 ** Researches" the following year. This paper, to which I would 

 now call your attention, was prepared by Mr. John M'Clelland, 

 assistant surgeon in the Bengal medical service. Our author was in- 

 duced to undertake the elucidation of this subject, by perceiving 

 that Cuvier had adopted only such of the Indian Cyprinidse as were 

 figured in Dr. Buchanan's work on Gangetic Fishes-— leaving the re- 

 maining three-fourths of the species described in that work, as not 

 well determined — and feeling satisfied that these descriptions of 

 Buchanan were so general that they could not by any one be dis- 

 tinguished, he resolved to make the attempt to identify them, by col- 

 lecting all these species, and minutely studying their characters. 

 " After perseverance for the better part of three years," to use the 

 words of our author, " occasionally giving it up in despair, I succeed- 

 ed 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 his paper was ready for 

 pubHcation, our author learned that some of Buchanan's drawings of 

 his Gangetic Fishes, were in the government house at the botanic 

 garden in Calcutta — and upon investigation, found a collection 

 " amounting to one hundred and fifty beautifully executed, and in- 

 cluding nearly all the unpublished species on which my painters had 

 been so long employed, with the specific names in Buchanan's hand- 

 writing marked under the figures, so as to leave no doubt or difiicul- 

 ty in referring them to corresponding descriptions in the Gangetic 

 Fishes." Fortunate indeed was it for science, although gross injus- 

 tice to Buchanan, that these drawings should have been thus long 

 concealed; had all the figures appeared in his " Gangetic Fishes," 

 they would have supplied the deficiency in his descriptions, and the 

 rich volume before us, would have never been undertaken. Now, 

 after having for years examined the swamps and stagnant pools, and 

 the mountain streams of India — after having enlisted his numerous 

 friends in his service, and possessed through their efforts and his 

 own, not merely all the species described by Buchanan, but many 

 previously unknown — Dr. M'Clelland is not satisfied merely to cry 

 out evpr^/ca, but embodies here a great amount of information 



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