Bennett', and numbers, from the lustrous green of their scales, have obtained from the natives the appropriate name of Giraway, or parrots, of which one, the Sparus Hardwickii of Bennett, is called the "Flower Parrot," from its exquisite colouring, being barred with irregular bands of blue, crimson, and purple, green, yellow, and grey, and crossed by perpendicular stripes of black.

Of these richly coloured fishes the most familiar in the Indian seas are the Pteroids. They are well known on the coast of Africa, and thence eastward to Polynesia; but they do not extend to the west coast of America, and are utterly absent from the Atlantic. The rays of the dorsal and pectoral fins are so elongated, that when specimens were first brought to Europe it was conjectured that these fishes have the faculty of flight, and hence the specific name of " volitans." But this is an error, for, owing to the deep incisions between the pectoral rays, the pteroids are wholly unable to sustain themselves in the air. They are not even bold swimmers, living close to the shore and never venturing into the deep sea. Their head is ornamented with a number of filaments and cutaneous appendages, of which one over

the shores of the New World (G. saxatalis), and it is curious that Messrs. Quoy and GAIMARD found this fish at the Cape de Verde Islands in 1827.

This fish has a sharp round spine on the side of the body near the tail; a formidable weapon, which is generally partially concealed within a scabbard-like incision. It raises or depresses this spine at pleasure. The fish is yellow, with several nearly parallel blue

stripes on the back and sides; the
belly is white, the tail and fins
brownish green, edged with blue.
It is found in rocky places; and
according to BENNETT, who has
figured it in his second plate, it is
named Seweya. It has been known,
however, to all the old ichthyolo-
gists, Valentyn, Renard, Seba,
Artedi, and has been named Cha-
todon lineatus, by Linné. It is
scarce on the southern coast of
Ceylon.

each eye and another at the angles of the mouth are the most conspicuous. Sharp spines project on the crown and on the side of the gill-apparatus, as in the other seaperches, Scorpaena, Serranus, &c., of which these are

only a modified and ornate form. The extraordinary expansion of their fins is not, however, accompanied by a similar development of the bones to which they are attached, simply because they appear to have no peculiar function, as in flying fishes, or in those where the spines of the fins are weapons of offence. They attain to the length of twelve inches, and to a weight of about two pounds; they live on small marine animals, and by the Singhalese the flesh (of some at least) is considered good for table. Nine or ten species are known to occur in

the East Indian Seas, and of these the one figured above is, perhaps, the most common.

Another species known to occur on the coasts of Ceylon, is the Scorpaena miles, Bennett, or Pterois miles, Günther', of which Bennett has given a figure2, but it is not altogether correct in some particulars.

In the fishes of Ceylon, however, beauty is not confined to the brilliancy of their tints. In some, as in the Scarus harid, Forsk3, the arrangement of the scales is so graceful, and the effect is so heightened by modifications of colour, as to present the appearance of tessellation, or mosaic work.

Fresh-water Fishes.-Of the fresh-water fish, which inhabit the rivers and tanks, so very little has hitherto been known to naturalists, that of nineteen drawings

The fish from the Sea of Pinang, described by Dr. CANTOR with this name (Catal. Mal. Fish. p. 42), is again different, and belongs to a third species.

2 Fishes of Ceylon, Pl. ix. This is the fish figured by BENNETT as Sparus pepo. Fishes

of Ceylon, Plate xxviii.

4 In extenuation of the little that is known of the fresh-water fishes of Ceylon, it may be observed that very few of them are used at table by Europeans, and there is therefore no stimulus on the part of the natives to catch

sent home by Major Skinner in 1852, although specimens of well-known genera, Colonel Hamilton Smith pronounced nearly the whole to be new and undescribed species.

Of eight of these, which were from the Mahawelliganga, and caught in the vicinity of Kandy, five were carps; two were Leucisci, and one a Mastacembelus (M. armatus, Lacep); one was an Ophiocephalus, and one a Polyacanthus, with no serræ on the gills. Six were from the Kalanyganga, close to Colombo, of which two were Helostoma, in shape approaching the Chatodon; two Ophiocephali, one a Silurus, and one an Anabas, but the gills were without denticulation. From the still water of the lake, close to the walls of Colombo, there were two species of Eleotris, one Silurus with barbels, and two Malacopterygians, which appear to be Bagri.

The fresh-water Perches of Europe and of the North of America are represented in Ceylon and India by se veral genera, which bear to them a great external similarity (Lates, Therapon). They have the same habits as their European allies, and their flesh is considered equally wholesome, but they appear to enter salt-water, or at least brackish water, more freely. It is, however,

them. The burbot and grey mullet are occasionally eaten, but they taste of mud, and are not in request.

Some years ago the experiment was made, with success, of introducing into Mauritius the Osphromenus olfax of Java, which has also been taken to French Guiana. In both places it is now highly

esteemed as a fish for table. As it belongs to a family which possesses the faculty, hereafter alluded to, of surviving in the damp soil after the subsidence of the water in the tanks and rivers, it might with equal advantage be acclimated in Ceylon. It grows to 20 lbs. weight and upwards.

in their internal organisation that they differ most from the perches of Europe; their skeletons are composed of

fewer vertebræ, and the air bladder of the Therapon is divided into two portions, as in the carps. Four species at least of this genus inhabit the lakes and rivers of Ceylon, and one of them, of which a figure is given above, has been but imperfectly described in any ichthyological work'; it attains to the length of seven inches.

In addition to marine eels, in which the Indian coasts abound, Ceylon has some true fresh-water eels, which never enter the sea. These are known to the natives under the name of Theliya, and to naturalists by that of Mastacembelus. They have sometimes in ichthyological systems been referred to the Scombrida and other marine families, from the circumstance that the dorsal fin anteriorly is composed of spines. But, in addition to the