194 Transactions. 



Art. XX. — Notes on New Zealand Fishes : No. 2. 



By Edgar R. Waite, F.L.S., Curator, Canterbury Museum. 



[Bead before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 6th September, 1911.] 



Plates X-XII. 



6. Aegoeonichthys appelii Clarke. 



Plate X. 



To Mr. A. Hamilton; Director of the Dominion Museum, Wellington, I 

 owe the privilege of examining the remains of a specimen of this species. 

 This specimen is, I believe, only the second known ; it is in rather deplor- 

 able condition, being in two pieces, and has been otherwise so cut about 

 that no fully satisfactory description can be made. Mr. Hamilton writes, 

 " Please do whatever you like with the skin ; it is so torn and knocked 

 about that you will find description a difficult matter. The specimen 

 was caught by some fishermen on a line at the Heads (Port Nicholson), 

 and used by them for bait. Somebody saw it in the boat, and brought 

 the remains to me." 



Though the specimen is in a very dilapidated condition, the rarity of 

 the species makes it advisable to attempt to extract some few grains of 

 information from the remains, and these will be useful in the case of definite 

 and fixed characters. 



The type specimen was described and figured as having the head and 

 body strongly depressed, and as the author had the specimen entire, and 

 probably unmutilated, his description may be correct ; judging from our 

 remains alone, I should have said that the head, body, and tail were all 

 compressed, but the jaws appear to be so extensible and dilatable that 

 the contour of the head may perhaps be altered with the varying positions 

 of the jaws. Respecting this subject, Giinther* writes, " According to the 

 figure, Aegoeonichthys would appear to be much more depressed in shape 

 than Himantolophus ; however, we must remember that these flaccid deep- 

 sea fishes may assume, or be made to assume, very different appearances." 



By careful piecing together it is found that the whole of the skin of 

 one side and of portion of the other remains, so that it is possible to 

 correctly render an account of all the fins, and the number and disposition 

 of the dermal scutes. The whole of the body, with the exception of the 

 vertebrae, is missing ; but if all the vertebrae are represented, as I believe 

 they are, their total number is 17, and this is also the number supplied for 

 Halieutaea, another member of the order. 



Of Aegoeonichthys Giinther also writes, ' Unfortunately, nothing is 

 known of the gills of this fish, which, as regards grotesqueness of form, 

 surpasses the fishes of the preceding genus (Himantolophus). It is evidently 

 closely allied to Himantolophus reinhardtii, and I therefore suppose that it 

 possesses the same number of gills. If this should prove to be the case, 

 the question will arise whether it should be kept as the type of a distinct 

 genus." 



* Giinther, " Challenger Reports," vol. 22, 1887, p. 51. 



