Sunder Lal Hora

The Adhesive Apparatus of the "Sucking-fish"

EARLY in 1923 I published in NATURE a short summary of my views regarding the mechanism of the so-called suckers of certain hill-stream fishes and of the “Sucking-fish”—Echeneis.1 My conclusions were based on an examination of the living specimens of two Indian genera of hill-stream fishes—Pseudecheneis and Glyptothorax, and on a study of preserved material of Echeneis. Later, at my request, Major R. B. Seymour Sewell, Surgeon-Naturalist to the Marine Survey of India, very kindly performed a series of experiments on living specimens of Echeneis. Quite recently (September 1924) I have been able to conduct a few experiments on the “Sucking-fish” in the Marine Aquarium at Madras. In carrying out these experiments I received great help from Dr. Sundara Raj, acting director of the Madras Fisheries, and Prof. H. Parameswaran, of the Presidency College.

Hamilton-Buchanan's Drawings of Indian Fish

IN NATURE of May 12, p. 770, the following statement was made under “Research Items” in directing attention to my recent work on the MS. drawings of Indian Fish (Ham.-Buch. Collection): “In the first volume there are 22 plates of fish illustrations, representing 51 species, and the rest of the plates are of mammals; the second and third volumes are drawings of birds made by Mr. Gibbons; and the fourth are those of fishes, representing 150 species”. I am afraid the writer of these notes has given wrong information. In the first volume there are only twenty plates of fish, and while in the second and third volumes there are some drawings by Mr. Gibbons, the majority of the plates are Buchanans. The fourth volume contains delineations of 144 species.