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PDFThe sharks and rays form about one seventh of our own fish fauna. They constitute about one tenth or one eleventh of Russell and Cantor’s lists, while among these Ceylon drawings I find not more than twenty, or about one thirtieth of the whole, which can be referred to this group of fishes. It must be extremely interesting to know whether this circumstance is owing to accident, or to the local peculiarities of Colombo, or whether the fauna of Ceylon really is deficient in such fishes.
The like exceptional character is to be noticed in the proportion of the tribe of flat fishes, or Pleuronectidae. Soles, turbots, and the like, form nearly one twelfth of our own fishes. Both Cantor and Russell give the flat fishes as making one twenty-second part of their collection, while in the whole 600 Ceylon drawings I can find but five Pleuronectidae.
When this great collection has been carefully studied, I doubt not that many more interesting distributional facts will be evolved.
* * * * *
Since receiving this note from Professor Huxley, the drawings in question have been submitted to Dr. Gray, of the British Museum, and that eminent naturalist, after a careful analysis, has favoured me with the following memorandum of the fishes they exhibit, numerically contrasting them with those of China and Japan, so far as we are acquainted with the ichthyology of those seas:—
Cartilaginea.
China
and
Ceylon
Japan.
Squali 12 15
Raiae 19 20
Sturiones 0 1
Ostinopterygii.
Plectognathi.
tetraodontidae 10
21
balistidae 9
19
Lophobranchii
syngnathidae 2
2
pegasidae 0
3
Ctenobranchii
lophidae 1
3
Cyclopodii.
echeneidae 0
1
cyclopteridae 0
1
gobidae 7
35
China
and
Ceylon
Japan.
Percini.
callionymidae 0
7
uranoscopidae 0
7
cottidae 0
13
triglidae 11
37
polynemidae 12
3
mullidae 1
7
percidae 26
12
berycidae 0
5
sillaginidae 3
1
sciaenidae 19
13
haemulinidae 6
12
serranidae 31
38
theraponidae 8
