192 Transactions. — Zoology. 



Akt. X. — On a Species of Eegalecus or Chxat Oar-fish, 

 caught in Okain's Bay. 



By H. 0. FoBBEs. 



Communicated by J. T. Meeson, B.A. 



[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 4th Juiie, 1891.'] 



On the morning of the 28th May I received a note from Mr. 

 Warnes, the fishmonger, requesting me to inspect a curious 

 fish caught in Okain's Bay, Banks Peninsula, on the 26th, 

 and which he was bringing up to town that day. On its 

 arrival in Christchurch in the afternoon I found the fish 

 to be a species of Begalecus, or oar-fish, of unusually large 

 proportions. 



Begalecus is a genus of fishes belonging to the family 

 TrachypteridcB or ribbon-fishes. According to Dr. Giinther, of 

 the British Museum, they " are true deep-sea fishes, met with 

 in all parts of the ocean, generally found when floating dead 

 on the surface or thrown ashore by the waves." 



The oar-fishes are among the largest of the deep-sea fishes 

 known. They derive their name from the singular form of 

 their ventral fins, which — reduced to one long, slender, and 

 fragile filament, terminating in an oai'-blade-like expansion, 

 which projects from its sides for a distance, in our specimen, 

 of nearly 3-|ft. — are functionally useless. 



The Begaleci, or oared ribbon-fishes, have been taken in 

 the Mediterranean, in the North and South Atlantic, and in 

 the Indian Ocean. In Australasian waters one has been taken 

 off the coast of Victoria, and several on the shores of this 

 colony. But they are very scarce, not more than twenty 

 captures having been recorded from England in the space of 

 a century and a half, and not more than thirteen from the 

 coasts of Norway. The present specimen is the tenth caught 

 in New Zealand. I take from a paper read before the Otago 

 Institute by Professor Parker, F.E.S., who has compiled a list 

 of these captures up to the date of his communication, which 

 described the last species known to have been stranded on our 

 coast, the following notes : Of these one was captured at Nelson 

 in 1860 ; a second at Jackson's Bay in 1874 ; another {Bcgalc- 

 cits pacificiis, Haast), which is now in the Cantei'bury Museum, 

 as well as a drawing of it by Dr. Powell, was caught at New 

 Brighton in 1876 ; a fourth was cast ashore on Little Wai- 

 mangaroa Beach, on the west coast of the South Island, in 

 1877 ; a fifth (B. hanksii) at Cape Farewell in 1877 ; the sixth 



