Notes on a collection marketable fish from Akyab, with a description of a new species of Lactarius

In February this year Mr. I. H. Burkill, Reporter on Economic Products to the Government of India, sent an agent to Akyab, on the Arakan Coast of Burma, to make a collection of the fish exposed for sale in the market. This collection, which includes no less than 69 different species, was handed over to the IndianMuseum for investigation. Dr. Annandale, who looked through the specimens and identified some of the species, has invited me to complete the identifieations and to publish the results.

The collection ineludes fish from both fresh and salt water, but even taking this fact into consideration, it is surprising to find so many different species of edible fish on sale in the market at one season. Their variety illustrates the great wealth of fish life in Indian waters.

Most of the species have been identified from Francis Day's admirable monograph on the Fishes of India , and also by reference to his original collection, which is available for comparison in the Indian Museum. Several of the species show slight variations from Day's descriptions, and in one ease it has been found necessary to describe a new species ( Lactarius burmanicus ).

The agent who colleeted the fish also gathered together information of various kinds about them, such as their Arakanese names, the season of the year at which they are coinmon, the character of the water in which they are found, and their niarket value. Some of his statements are at variance with those of Day; but it must be remembered how difficult it is to obtain accurate information on fish subjects. In the following list the statements in inverted commas [snakeheads.org uses: « ... »] are extracts from the notes of Babu Rajoni Kanta Das, who made the collection. All undefined references are to Day's Fishes of India . The classification adopted is that of Boulenger. The term «river fish» may here be taken to inelude all fish from water on the landward side of Akyab bar.

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Ophiocephalidae

38. Ophiocephalus striatus «Name Nga rin ; a common river fish»

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Acknowledgement and Source(s)

This text was originally published under the above title in: Records of the Indian Museum . 1907, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 219-227. The copyright owner Zoological Survey of India has granted snakeheads.org the right to publish it on the org's site. The copyright of the text is still with the owner in full amount.