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P R E F A C E. 
The following Collection of Fishes, the fruit of many laborious hours, 
when disengaged from other pursuits of natural history, was completed 
in the course of several years residence at Vizagapatam, on the coast of 
Coromandel. 
Some time after my return from that country, the Drawings were pre¬ 
sented to the East India Company; and to the Honourable the Court of 
Directors, at all times disposed to promote the cultivation of natural 
history in the British establishments in the East, the present Work owes 
its appearance. 
An idea of profiting of a maritime situation so favourable to ichthyo¬ 
logical pursuits was first excited by the view of fishermen daily dragging 
the large seine, or angling from boats and catamarans beyond the surf: 
but my library, besides Belon, Willoughby, Ray, and Linneus, was 
scantily provided with books on a subject which had before only cursorily 
interested me, and I should have desisted despondently, had not the Right 
Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, who honoured me with his correspondence, 
suggested how defective the history of Indian Fishes was in Europe at 
that time, and encouraged me to proceed. 
A native painter whom I retained in my employment, had made pro¬ 
gressive improvement in this new line. Endued by nature with a quick 
eye, patient and docile, he learned in a short time to delineate so accu¬ 
rately the parts pointed out to him, that his figures, howsoever deficient 
in art and grace, may in general be relied on in respect to fidelity in 
representation. 
It was my original intention to have had the Drawings, in like manner 
as the Coromandel Serpents, coloured from nature: but after many fruitless 
