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Show 224 MR. F. DAY ON THE FISHES OF AFGHANISTAN. [Apr. 6, 1. On the Fishes of Afghanistan. By FRANCIS DAY, F.Z.S. [Eeceived April 6, 1880.] In the ' Proceedings' of this Society for the year 1876 I was enabled to give an account of the fishes collected by the Yarkand expedition. Observing how little was known of the forms inhabiting the ranges of hills to the south and south-west of Peshawur, I applied to some friends in India to try and obtain collections. These ranges may be roughly classed into two:-the Suliemans, dividing the Punjab from Afghanistan proper ; and the Beluchistan range or Halah Mountains, extending from near Kurrachee to Quetta. Up to the present I have not obtained any fishes from the Suliemans ; and as no accounts of any captured there have, so far as I know, been recorded, it is impossible to give more than a guess as to whether their fish-fauna resembles that of the Himalayas or that of the Beluchistan range, which two, as I now find, are entirely distinct. Dr. C. Duke has been good enough to collect with great care aud discrimination some of the fishes from the highlands about Kelat and Quetta, which I shall have to allude to further on. Col. Miles likewise sent me, in 1872, a small but beautiful collection from a river about twenty miles inland from Gwadur, on the Meckran coast; and what increases the interest of these two collections is that some of the fishes are identical species ; so that we may fairly conclude that their range is extensive. I shall also allude to Griffith's collections, and one that I personally made on the eastern or Indian side of the Beluchistan range of hills. The first account which we possess of the fishes inhabiting Afghanistan is by Griffith, whose collection was described by M'Clelland in the 2nd volume of the 'Calcutta Journal of Natural Historv.' Griffith, in his tour, collected fish at Loodianah, Ferozepore, also from streams existing in the watershed of the Indus, and likewise from that river itself so far south as near Shikarpoor; then proceeding through the Bolan Pass, he continued his investigations to Quetta, at which place the waters no longer find their way into the Indus, but become lost in detail, or empty themselves into the Helmund. His next researches were into the fishes of the Helmund and its affluents, as well as those of the Cabul river and its feeders until it finds its way past Jellalabad and through the Kyber Pass to Peshawur, and so on to the Indus. I do not intend making any remarks upon Griffith's researches in the Helmund or Cabul rivers, as at a future date we may hope to receive some more fishes from those localities, The district I propose more especially drawing attention to is a range of hills stretching from the valley of the Indus, their most southern point being near Kurrachee; and in their course they divide Sind from Beluchistan. They tower one above another in steps, and are continued from the south on to Kelat and Quetta, the former being at an elevation of about 7000 feet with a European climate, while they decrease in height to Quetta, where they are |