The Fishes of the Nile ¹

Abstract

THESE two handsome volumes are a tribute to the late Dr. John Anderson's zeal in the cause of Egyptian zoology, and a justification of the cordial support which he had from Lord Lister, Dr. Günther, Sir E. Ray Lankester, and Dr. Sclater in prevailing on the Egyptian Government to undertake the inquiry. The author, the collector and the artist are to be congratulated on this important contribution to African ichthyology. Moreover, the region embraced in the description, as shown in the two excellent maps of the Nile system—Upper and Lower—is one of great interest to the general zoologist, for it contains the sole survivors of an order (Polypterida?) abundantly represented from the Devonian to the Cretaceous,: and includes one of the remarkable Dipnoans. It is an area in which the rare electrical fishes Mormyrus and Malapterurus (or, as the author has it, Malopterurus) are mingled with the subtropical and tropical Gymnarchus, the curious Heterotis, the Characinidæ, the Siluridæ, Ophiocephalus, the Anabantidæ, and the Cichlidæ; whilst by way of contrast these are associated with the cosmopolitan Clupea finta and Mugil capito, with the common Anguilla vulgaris and the ubiquitous Morons labrax. Yet these do not exhaust the sourdes of special interest, for not only were fishes, such as the Nile perch, preserved as mummies, their forms inscribed on ancient monuments or perpetuated in bronze models, but in this oldworld country the number of fishes which carry and hatch their comparatively large ova and protect their young in the bucco-pharyngeal cavity is remarkable.