LOACHES. 
705 
in this crevice may be felt the tip of a spine, which 
does not, however, admit of erection. Again, Day ob- 
serves of the Indian species of the genus Nemachilus 
that “sometimes the preorbital is raised and with a free 
lower edge, while this may not occur in all examples 
of the same species”. Several authors too, Moreau and 
Lilljeborg for example, have abandoned the attempt to 
distinguish the genera within this family exclusively by 
the presence or absence of the preorbital spine. On the 
other hand, it seems highly probable, to judge by our 
knowledge of the remaining genera, and also when we 
consider the analogous relations within the Glanomorph 
series, that the presence or absence of barbels on the 
lower jaw affords a constant and more useful generic 
character, though in many species that are otherwise 
without them, these barbels are indicated by contrac- 
tions and interposed swellings on the underlip. Whether 
we choose on this ground to retain the genus Misgurnus 
for the European Misgurnus fossilis and a few other 
species, or whether we regard this group as a subgenus 
of the genus Colitis, a course for which we shall find 
strong reasons below, is a matter of no great im- 
portance in the Scandinavian fauna, for though Misgur- 
nus fossilis has once been planted in Sweden — in ponds 
at Ulriksdal, according to Linnaeus — it has not spread, 
so far as is known, to any extent in this country. 
Genus COBITIS. 
Six barbels", none on the lower jaw. Body elongated, terete , or compressed. Head naked ( without scales). Dorsal 
fin short and situated above the ventral fins. Caudal fin rounded , truncate, or slightly concave. 
This genus comprises the great majority of the fa- 
mily. Including the species that have previously been 
referred to the genus Nemachilus, as being without 
movable preorbital spine below the eyes — by far the 
greater number belong to this class — 67 species have 
been adopted and described by Gunther, Day, Herzen- 
stein, and Bleeker. Day enumerates 31 species from 
India. Herzenstein assigns 17 species to the highlands 
of Central Asia (Tibet). From Syria and Palestine 7 
species are known, described by Heckel and Gunther. 
Bleeker cites only two species from Java and Sumatra, 
Castelnau two from Cape Town * 6 . Europe also pos- 
sesses two species of the genus. It thus appears that 
the genus thrives best in the rivers and brooks of the 
Asiatic Highlands; and it is probably thence that it 
has spread to the lowlands. 
In one of our European species ( C . taenia) Ca- 
nestrinP remarked in the structure of the pectoral 
fins an external difference between the sexes, an ob- 
servation which Herzenstein has subsequently verified 
with one or two modifications, in the majority of the 
species that inhabit Central Asia. In the males of these 
species the second ray of the pectoral fins is more or 
less thickened and broad, and furnished during the 
spawning-season with tubercles or spines. 
The members of this genus are in general of in- 
significant size d , though, as Valenciennes has pointed 
out, not to such an extent that we are justified in 
assuming that it was to these fishes that Aristotle 
referred when he included Kcofiirig among the Aphyce 
(cf. above, p. 264). The genus Colitis of modern 
ichthyology dates from Artedi. 
In Scandinavia only two species are found: 
1: Preorbital bone furnished with a spine... Colitis taenia. 
2: No extensile spine below the eyes Colitis larlatula. 
a In one Indian species there are 8 barbels; but all of them belong to the snout and the upper jaw. 
6 These two species are recognised by Gunther, however, merely as doubtful. 
c Fn. Ital., part. Ill, Pesci, p. 21. 
d One species, Colitis yarkandensis from the Asiatic Highlands, attains, however, a length of at least 3 dm., and is thus only slightly 
inferior in size to the European Misgurnus fossilis, which sometimes measures 3 1 / 2 dm. 
