24 
NEW OR LITTLE KNOWN FISHES 
inadequacy of the original description, and partly through the 
unfortunate tendency, which is prevalent among many recent writers, 
of blindly following the dictum of some previous author, without 
personally sifting the evidence for and against in every obscure 
case, and, when possible, by personal examination verifying or 
contravening it. We trust, therefore, that the following remarks 
will be of some value in clearing up the confused synonymy of the 
species under consideration. 
In the year 1803 Dr. Patrick Eussell published his "Fishes of 
Vizagapatam " ; in this work three species of gray mullets were 
described and figured under the native names " Bontali" " Kunnesee" 
and " Peddaralci Sovere " ; it is with the second of these that we are 
now concerned. At the beginning of the nineteenth century no 
special importance was attached to the number of scales on or above 
the lateral line, and we therefore find that neither Eussell, nor 
subsequently Cuvier & Valenciennes, make any reference to this 
importaut character ; from this omission rose all the subsequent 
confusion. It is, then, necessary to ascertain whether from the 
figures of the two remaining species (respectively M. oeur and 
L. waiqiensis) we can deduce sufficient reliable data to enable us to 
fix with some degree of accuracy the number of transverse series 
of scales in the kunnesee. A glance at the figures will show that 
owing to the OA^er-attenuation of the posterior caudal scales the 
numbers in both these figures are considerably in excess of what we 
know them to be in fact. Thus in Mugil oeur we have ascertained 
from actual examination that the number varies from 42 to 44 and 
in Liza waiqiensis from 26 to 27, the corresponding numbers in 
Eussell's figures being 51 (computing 6 for the space covered by 
the fin that being the same number contained in a similar succeeding 
space) and 35, or in each case from 7 to 8 or 9 extra scales, although 
one is a small-scaled, the other a large-scaled species ; inferentially, 
therefore, we may conclude that a similar reduction of 7 to 9 scales 
from the number figured over " Kunnesee " will give us the 
aoproximate number of transverse series in that fish. In EusselTs 
figure 52 scales are shown, which by the application of the above 
rule would give us a fish with from 43 to 45 series of scales. Dr. 
Cantor, who, next after Valenciennes, gave a detailed account of 
this mullet, had many opportunities of observing and examining it 
in various parts of the Malay Peninsula and Archipelago and 
