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Show 1871.] DR. A. GUNTHER ON INDIAN FISHES. 763 When, in 1857, the most important part of the collection of the Zoological Society was purchased by the Trustees of the British Museum, the register of that collection was fortunately obtained at the same time. In that register every fish possessed by the Society was entered, under a separate number, with the name of the donor and other particulars; but the name of Col. Sykes does not appear once. Nor is there the slightest indication in Col. Sykes's paper in the ' Transactions of the Zoological Society' that he presented specimens of the fishes described to the Society. The plates in the ' Transactions' were not made from specimens, but copied from native drawings brought home by him. Col. Sykes appears to have sent specimens of various fishes to the Museum of the late East- India Company; but, although I searched carefully that museum (before and after the transfer of its fish-collection to the British Museum) for types of Col. Sykes's paper, I failed to discover them, There were other fishes said to have been sent by Col. Sykes; but they had nothing to do with his paper on the Dukhun fishes, and were preserved in spirits. Thus there is sufficient evidence to show that no typical specimen was placed by Col. Sykes in the collection of the Zoological Society ; and I proceed to trace the history of the specimen of the Ps. longimanus by the aid of the same register. Two labels are attached to it:- a. The round original label used by the curator of the Zoological Society for the skins of fishes, with the no. 940 written on it. On referring to this number in the register 1 find the following entry in the handwriting of Mr. G. R. Waterhouse, then curator of the Zoological Society:- "1834. Dec. 3. Pimelodus vacha. India. Presented by J. Willie, Esq." So much for Mr. Day's discovery that " it was one of Sykes's specimens." It had been presented with others to the Society by Mr. Willie in 1834-that is, five years before Col. Sykes communicated bis paper to the Zoological Society. Further, on inquiring of Mr. Waterhouse as to who had named it " Pimelodus vacha," he replied that he himself had named the fishes in a preliminarv manner ; and for that purpose, and at that time, Mr. Waterhouse's determination was sufficiently approximate to the truth. b. The second label was placed in 1857 by the curator of the British Museum, Mr. Gerrard, and bears, in his handwriting, our register mark, and the name of Hypophthalmus goongarensis, Sykes. Whether he, or somebody else who studied the fish after the publication of Sykes's paper, applied this name to it, he cannot remember. The name having been latinized, it was probably done by Bennett. However, this is of no consequence ; and the " transposition of labels " which is said to have taken place is merely a convenient supposition of Mr. Day (used by him not for the first time), without even a shadow of probability in this case. For completeness' sake I may mention another fact which is passed over in silence by Mr. Day, although it may have (unfortunately) |
