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H'RB’ 
PREFACE. 
A few words of explanation as to our object in publishing an account of the Fishes 
of Zanzibar appear necessary. The east coast of Africa may, for purposes of 
ichthyology, be conveniently divided into four regions. The first is contained within 
the limits of the Red Sea; the second extends thence to the Rovuma River, the 
southern boundary of Zanzibar; the third includes the Portuguese province of 
Mozambique; and the fourth the British settlements of Natal and the Cape. 
The Fish-fauna of three of these has been more or less completely worked out, 
viz. the Red Sea by Forskal and Riippell, Mozambique by Peters, and the south- 
eastern parts by Sir Andrew Smith ; while the ichthyology of the great islands lying 
off the coast has formed the subject of papers by Lienard, Bennett, Guichenot, and 
others, not to mention the numerous species described by Lacepede, Cuvier, and 
V alenciennes. 
But no attempt has been made to illustrate the Fish-fauna of that large extent of 
coast stretching between the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb and Mozambique. The labours 
of Lieut. Colonel Playfair go far to supply this hiatus. In the course of a residence of 
many years at Aden and Zanzibar, during which he made frequent excursions to the 
African coast and the adjacent islands, he formed a considerable collection of Fish, 
of which the following pages contain a description. With the exception of one or two 
species described from specimens in the Vienna Museum, which we have not seen, and 
a few collected by Dr. Kirk in the Rovuma River, now in the British Museum, 
we have limited ourselves strictly to that collection. We have added, however, a 
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