100 
ST. SELENA. 
CLASS IV.— AMPHIBIA. 
Nil. 
CLASS V.— PISCES. 
There are no less than seventy-five different kinds of fishes at 
St. Helena, but they are all marine. Although there are brooks and 
running streams which fish might inhabit, there is no record of 
the East India Company, or any one since their time, having en- 
deavoured to introduce fresh-water fishes, and the only importation 
in this respect is characterized by the little gold fish Cyprinus auratus, 
which was doubtless taken to the Island from China, aud is still 
met with occasionally in garden ponds, as well as in glass globes on 
sitting-room tables. 
A collection of the St. Helena fishes bad never been made until I 
presented mine to the British Museum ; and fortunately it fell into the 
hands of Dr. Albert Gunther, who, with his well-known ability and 
care, examined and described sixty -five,* including one new genus and 
sixteen species which had hitherto been unknown to science. These 
seventeen may therefore be considered as quite peculiar to the place, 
and to them it seems to me admissible to add, as natives, thirty-one 
more, which, though found elsewhere, are so closely identified with the 
Island, through inhabiting the rocky shores in shallow water, as to 
merit a distinction from some twenty others which are inhabi- 
tants of deeper water and are common to tropical and Atlantic seas. 
Nine species of the St. Helena fishes are found also in the West 
Indies ; and others, amongst those in my collection, have also been 
taken as far off as Pondicherry, Japan, Australia, Panama, Zanzibar, 
Madeira, and the Mediterranean. 
So far, the examination of the fish fauna of the Island has pro- 
gressed, but there are doubtless many hidden treasures still in those 
waters surrounding it to repay the future naturalist who undertakes 
to search for them. Seven more, which were not in my collection, 
are known to exist — viz., two varieties of the albicore, the baracoota 
(which, with mackerel and the former, constitutes the chief food of 
the population), the bream, the Eoman-fish, the bread-fish, and the 
* Proceedings of Zoological Society of London, March 26, 1S68, and April 8, 18C9 ; also 
Catalogue of Fishes in the British Museum, hy Dr. Albert Gunther, vol. viii. 
