The like exceptional character is to be noticed in the proportion of the tribe of flat fishes, or Pleuronectidae.  Soles, turbots, and the like, form nearly one twelfth of our own fishes.  Both Cantor and Russell give the flat fishes as making one twenty-second part of their collection, while in the whole 600 Ceylon drawings I can find but five Pleuronectidae.

When this great collection has been carefully studied, I doubt not that many more interesting distributional facts will be evolved.

* * * * *

Since receiving this note from Professor Huxley, the drawings in question have been submitted to Dr. Gray, of the British Museum.  That eminent naturalist, after a careful analysis, has favoured me with the following memorandum of the fishes they represent, numerically contrasting them with those of China and Japan, so far as we are acquainted with the ichthyology of those seas:—­

  CARTILAGINEA.

Ceylon.  China and Japan.

Squali                   12               15
Raiae                     19               20
Sturiones                 0                1

  OSTINOPTERYGII.

  Plectognathi.
       tetraodontidae 10 21
       balistidae 9 19
  Lophobranchii.
       syngnathidae 2 2
       pegasidae 0 3
  Ctenobranchii.
       lophidae 1 3
  Cyclopodi.
       echeneidae 0 1
       cyclopteridae 0 1
       gobidae 7 35
  Percini.
       callionymidae 0 7
       uranoscopidae 0 7
       cottidae 0 13
       triglidae 11 37
       polynemidae 12 3
       mullidae 1 7
       perecidae 26 12
       berycidae 0 5
       sillaginidae 3 1
       sciaenidae 19 13
       haemullinidae 6 12
       serranidae 31 38
       theraponidae 8 20
       cirrhitidae 0 2
       maenidiae 37 25
       sparidae 16 17
       acanthuridae 14 6
       chaetodontidae 25 21
       fistularidae 2 3
  Periodopharyngi.
       mugilidae 5 7
       anabantidae 6 15
       pomacentridae 10 11
  Pharyngognathi.
       labridae 16 35
       scomberesocidae