P R E F A C E .
T he following Collection o f Fishes, the fruit o f many laborious hours,
when disengaged from other pursuits o f natural history, was completed
in the course o f several years residence at Vizagapatam, on the coast o f
Coromandel.
Some time after my return from that country, the Drawings were presented
to the East India Company; and to the Honourable the Court o f
Directors, at all times disposed to promote the cultivation o f natural
history in the British establishments in the East, the present Work owes
its appearance.
An idea o f profiting o f a maritime situation so favourable to ichthyo-
logical pursuits was first excited by the view o f fishermen daily dragging
the large seine, or angling from boats and catamarans beyond the surf:
but my library, besides Belon, Willoughby, Ray, and Linneus, was
scantily provided with books on a subject which had before only cursorily
interested me, and I should have desisted despondently, had not the Right
Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, who honoured me with his correspondence,
suggested how defective the history o f Indian Fishes was in Europe at
that time, and encouraged me to proceed.
A native painter whom I retained in my employment, had made progressive
improvement in this new line. Endued by nature with a quick
eye, patient and docile, he learned in a short time to delineate so accurately
the parts pointed out to him, that his figures, howsoever deficient
in art and grace, may in general be relied on in respect to fidelity in
representation.
It was my original intention to have had the Drawings, in like manner
as the Coromandel Serpents, coloured from nature: but after many fruitless