130 Transactions. 



20. Lophotes cepedianus Giorna. 



Plate IV, fig. 2. 



Lophotes cepedianus Giorna, Mem. Accad. Torino, xvi, 1809, p. 19, 

 pi. ii, fig. 1. 



Mr. A. Hamilton, Director of the Dominion Museum, sent a specimen 

 of Lophotes, upon which he asked me to report. 



Parker* appears to have been the first to record Lophotes from New 

 Zealand, and, knowing only of L. cepedianus, assumed that his specimen 

 was of the same species. The Dunedin record was followed by a notice by 

 Clarke, f who reported the stranding of a specimen on the Waiwakaiho 

 Beach, Taranaki. Clarke did not see the fish, but identified it generically 

 from Verbal descriptions and drawings, one of which he reproduced. 



We next find that Hutton,J though giving the references to the papers 

 of Parker and Clarke, enters the New Zealand species as Ij. fiski Gunther.§ 

 He seems to have had no specimen for examination, and L. fiski is such a 

 peculiar form that he was clearly wrong in identifying with it the specimens 

 described by Parker and Clarke. Upon the authority of the. " Index " 

 L. fiski was entered in my " Basic List "|| but the species should evidently 

 be erased from the New Zealand fauna. When describing this fish in 1890 

 from a specimen stranded at the Cape, Gunther mentioned that three 

 nominal species had been then described — 'namely, L. cepedianus Giorna, 

 L. capellei Schlegel, and L. cristatus Johnson — but remarked that all three 

 were possibly of the same species. He had then overlooked the fact that 

 Johnston ^f had associated his own name with a Lophotes taken in Tasmanian 

 waters : L. guntheri is described as having reticulate markings. More 

 recently, Kershaw** identified with L. cristatus a specimen taken in Vic- 

 torian waters, but I have not seen his note. As my private library is 

 packed for transport, I am unable to make further notes on the history 

 of the fishes of this genus. 



The subject of this note was obtained in the Wellington district, and a 

 cast was made for exhibition in the Canterbury Museum. A photograph of 

 this cast is reproduced herewith, and shows the general proportions of the 

 fish, its peculiar flat shape rendering it tolerably free from the distortions 

 to which a round fish is subject under the photographic lens The. first 

 rays of the dorsal fin and the upper rays of the caudal were broken, other- 

 wise the fish was quite perfect. 



The following is a description of the specimen : — 



B. vii ; D. 246 ; A. 12 ; P. 13 ; V. 5. L. lat. 25 + 216 ; L. tr. 24 + ? 



Length of head, 7-1 ; depth of body, 5-1 in the length : diameter of 

 eye, 3-0 ; and length of snout, 4-5 in the head. 



The mouth is small and oblique, and the maxilla extends to below the 

 first fourth of the eye ; the premaxilla forms its entire front border. The 

 eye is circular, and placed nearer the lower than the upper profile. The 

 nostril is a horizontal slit, placed quite anteriorly, close above the mouth. 



* Parker, Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. 26, 1894. p. 223. 



t Clarke, Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. 29. 1897, p. 251, pi. xvi. 



j Hutton, ' Index Faunae Novae Zealandiae," 1904, p. 47. 



§ Gtinther, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1890, p. 244. pi. xix, xx. 



|| Waite, Rec. Cant. Mus., i, 1907, p. 33. 



t Johnston, Proc. Roy. Soc. Tas., 1884, p. 142. 



** Kershaw, "Victorian Naturalist," vol. 26, p. 78. 



