PAPERS READ. 



NOTES ON THE GENERA OF AUSTRALIAN FISHES. 

 By E. p. Ramsay, F.R.S.E., &c., and J. Douglas-Ogilby. 



Part I. 



(N'otes from the Australian Museum). 



In the following paper it is our intention to clearly point out the 

 generic distinctions between certain groups of Australian Percoids ; 

 and we wish to call special attention to the fact that, after an 

 exhaustive examination of over fifty examples each of Lates cal- 

 carifer and Lates colonorum, we have arrived at the conclusion that 

 these fishes are generically separable, and we propose thei'efore the 

 name Percalates for the southern temperate form. We have also 

 examined a number of small fishes from the Murray near Denili- 

 quin, belonging to Count Castelnau's genera Murrayia and 

 Riverina, and are fully in accord with Dr. Khinzinger in consi- 

 dering these names synonymous with Macquaria, Cuv. & Val., 

 the characters which caused the Count to separate the fishes from 

 that described by the latter authors, and excellently figured by 

 MM. Lesson and Garnot in the " Voyage of the Coquille " 

 pi. XIV. fig. 1, having doubtless been overlooked by the authors of the 

 " Histoire Naturelle des Poissons"; whilst the presence or absence 

 of an extra spine to the first dorsal, or of a few minute, and 

 probably deciduous, palatine teeth cannot be considered as forming 

 a valid reason for separating generically two species so exactly 

 similar in all other characters as Murrayia guentheri and Riverina 

 Jiuviatilis. It is worth mentioning that the Australian Museum 

 possesses Castelnau's types of Murrayia guentheri and Dules (Cteno- 

 lates) auratus, both having been obtained from precisely the same 

 locality as our specimens. 



