New Chinese fishes

John Treadwell Nichols

The American Museum of Natural History was recently accumulated a small collection from two widely separated sources, firstly from Yunnan-fu, Yunnan Province, collected by John Graham, secondly from Futsing, Fu-kien Province, collected by the Museum's Asiatic Zoological Expedition of 1916-17, about July 25, 1916.

Only one species is commton to the two lots, the Goldfish Carassius auratus (Linnaeus).

Owing largely to small collections sent to the British Museum by Mr. Graham over a period of years, the fishes of Yunnan are comparatively well known. It will suffice merely to mention those species in Yunnan lot already known from that locality: namely [ ... ] Ophiocephalus argus Cantor . Monopterus sp. (see beyond).

Five species in the Fu-Kien lot are well known fishes, [ ... ] Channa ocellata Peters . Mr H. R. Caldwell contributes interesting data on Channa . This fish is abundant near sea level in the vicinity of Fu-chau, and also occurs, though in less numbers at Yen-ping. It prefers stagnant watere and will travel across country to get from one pool to another or to invade the rice fields. Natives call it nguok-la , «Moon-pike» differentiating it from chau-la, «Grass-pike» Ophiocephalus. The reference is to the moon-like markings at the caudal base. It is a good food-fish.

ToC

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Acknowledgement and Source(s)

These passages were originally published under the above title in: Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington . vol 31, pp. 15-20; 1918.

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