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On Drawings of Fishes of the Rio Negro

Mr. C. Tate Regan, B.A., F.Z.S., exhibited an interesting series of pencil-sketches of Fishes of the Rio Negro and its tributaries, made by Dr. A. R. Wallace about fifty years ago. Most unfortunately the magnificent collection of Fishes which they represented, containing examples of about 200 species, was lost on the voyage home. Dr. Wallace had presented the drawings, accompanied by notes on the dentition, the number of fin-rays, and the coloration, to the British Museum, and Mr. Regan had been engaged in their determination. A complete list of those which he had been able to identify follows, but in the case of the others, a large proportion of which probably represented species as yet undescribed, it had seemed best not to reproduce the drawings nor to publish notes on them, but they served to illustrate the incompleteness of our knowledge of the fishes of the Amazon and its tributaries. For example, the Cichlid genus Crenicichla, a revision of which was read before a recent meeting of this Society, was represented by 10 species. Of these only 5 had been determined, including C. lenticulata Heck., unrepresented in the British Museum Collection, and one described from the Essequibo under the name of C. wallacii*. The other 5 had very distinctive characters, and certainly did not belong to any of the species recognised in Mr. Regan's revision. It was rather curious that Dr. Wallace should have collected so few Loricariidæ. The remarkable habits of the little Silurid Vandellia cirrhosa had been the subject of a communication made to this Society by Mr. Boulenger (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1897, p. 901), and it was interesting to read Dr. Wallace's notes on this subject†:—"The stomach is generally more or less filled with blood as it [the fish] attaches itself to other fish and aquatic animals and sucks them. This minute fish enters the urinary passage of men and women, wounds and extracts blood within, and all efforts to extract it are usually unavailing. Effusion of blood, inflammation, and death have in several instances occurred."

The Fishes identified were:—

Torpedinidæ:—Tœniura motoro Müll. & Henle.
Osteoglossidæ:—Osteoglossum bicirrhosum Vandelli.
Symbranchidæ—Symbranchus marmoratus BI.
Scombresocidæ:Belone tœniata Günth.

Characinidæ:—Macrodon trahira Spix; Erythrinus unitœniatus Spix, E. salmoneus Gronov., E. longipinnis Günth.; Pyrrhulina filamentosa Cuv. & Val.; Curimatus schomburgkii Günth., C. spilurus Günth., C. alburnus Müll. & Trosch., C. elongatus Spix; Prochilodus insignis Schomb.; Hemiodus immaculatus Kner, H. unimaculatus Müll. & Trosch.; Anostomus tœniatus Kner, A. gracilis Kner; Leporinus fasciatus Bl., L. affinis Günth., L. nigrotœniatus Schomb., L. striatus Kner, L. frederici Bl., L. leschenaultii Cuv. & Val., L. nattereri Steind., L. margaritaceus Günth.;

* Regan, supra, p. 163, pl. xiv. fig. 2.

† See also note in Arch, de Parasitol. vii. 1903, p. 168 (1904).

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Agoniates halecinus Müll. & Trosch.; Cynodon pectoralis Günth., C. scombroides Cuv.; Xiphostoma ocellatum Schomb., X. lateristriga Bouleng.; Xiphorhamphus ferox Günth., X. falcirostris Cuv.; Tetragonopterus bartletti Günth., T. oligolepis Günth., T. wappi Cuv. & Val., T. caudomaculatus Günth., T. grandisquamis Müll. & Trosch., T. chrysargyreus Günth., T. abramis Jenyns, T. chalceus Agass.; Brycon pesu Müll. & Trosch., B. schomburgkii Müll. & Trosch.; Chalceus macrolepidotus Cuv.; Megalobrycon cephalus Günth.; Crenuchus spilurus Günth.; Serrasalmo denticulatus Müll. & Trosch., S. scapularis Günth., S. gymnogenys Günth., S. humeralis Cuv. & Val.; Myletes schomburgkii Müll. & Trosch., M. ellipticus Günth., M. setiger Müll. & Trosch., M. duriventris Cuv., M. rhomboidalis Günth., M. rubripinnis Müll. & Trosch., M. asterias Müll. & Trosch., M. hypsauchen Müll. & Trosch.; Anacyrtus gibbosus L.

Gymnotidæ:—Sternopygus carapus L.; Carapus fasciatus Pall.; Gymnotus electricus L.; Sternarchus nattereri Steind.

Siluridæ:— Vandellia cirrhosa Cuv. & Val.; Callichthys longifilis Cuv. & Val., C. asper Quoy & Gaim.; Cetopsis cœcutiens Licht.; Asterophysus batrachus Kner; Oxydoras stenopeltis Kner, O. lipophthalmus Kner, O. carinatus Cuv. & Val.; Doras cataphractus L., D. heckelii Kner; Ageniosus militaris Bl.; Centromochlus heckelii Filippi; Platystoma planiceps Agass., P. tigrinum Cuv. & Val.; Callophysus lateralis Gill; Platynematichthys punctulatus Kner; Pirinampus typus Agass.; Pimelodus holomelas Günth., P. muelleri Günth., P. maculatus Lacep., P. ornatus Kner, P. eques Müll. & Trosch., P. cristatus Müll. & Trosch., P. sebœ Cuv. & Val., P. raninus Cuv. & Val.; Phractocephalus hemiliopterus Bl. Schn.; Piratinga goliath Kner.

Loricariidæ:—Loricaria carinata Casteln., L. maculata Bl.; Plecostomus guacari Lacep., Ancistrus gibbiceps Kner, A. brachyurus Kner, A. pictus Casteln.

Sciænidæ:—Sciœna amazonica Casteln.

Cichlidæ:—Cichla ocellaris Bl. Schn., C. temensis Humb.; Geophagus jurupari Heck., G. dœ;mon Heck., G. cupido Heck., G. surinamensis Bl.; Acaropsis nassa Heck.; Acara vittata Heck., A. tetramerus Heck.; Crenicichla johanna Heck., C. lugubris Heck., C. lenticulata Heck., C. saxatilis L., C. wallacii Regan; Cichlosoma coryphœnoides Heck., C. severum Heck., C. festivum Heck.; Pterophyllum scalare Cuv. & Val.