Smithsonian miscellaneous collections . Female. After Heckel. Male. After Day. Fig. 83.—Discognathus lamta. sinia. It rarely grows to more than six to eight inches long. Ac-cording to Day, it putrifies very rapidly after death, and generallydies almost as soon as removed from water. Peculiar Upland streams of the great mountain regions, the Himalayas andtheir outliers, isolating India from the rest of Asia, are to be foundpeculiar fishes which have been combined in a group named (byMcClelland) Schizothoracinse. The group includes fishes havingthe same general form as the barbels,


Smithsonian miscellaneous collections . Female. After Heckel. Male. After Day. Fig. 83.—Discognathus lamta. sinia. It rarely grows to more than six to eight inches long. Ac-cording to Day, it putrifies very rapidly after death, and generallydies almost as soon as removed from water. Peculiar Upland streams of the great mountain regions, the Himalayas andtheir outliers, isolating India from the rest of Asia, are to be foundpeculiar fishes which have been combined in a group named (byMcClelland) Schizothoracinse. The group includes fishes havingthe same general form as the barbels, and indeed called hill-barbels^. Fig. 84.—Schisothorax sinnatus. After Heckel. 326 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [vOL. 48 but distinguished by a remarkable type of squamation. Above andon each side of the anus and anal fin is a band of enlarged scalesdifferentiated from the others and forming a kind of sheath intowhich the base of the anal fin is concealed. In other respects thereis little diflference from the true barbels; there are, as in them, threerows of pharyngeal teeth in the typical forms, but in others there areonly two; the number of barbels varies, some species having four,others two, and the remaining none. About fifty species representing ten or a dozen genera are known,the principal being Schizothorax, which contains about a score ofspecies. Species of this genus are very voracious. J. McClelland (1838)claimed that it is no uncommon thing to find one so overgorgedthat the tail of its prey remains protruding from the mouth, to beswallowed after that portion which is capable of being received in


Size: 2012px × 1242px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: ., bookauthorsm, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubjectscience