384 Transactions. 



Art. XLVIII. — Notes on New Zealand Fishes. 



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



[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, Isf December, 1909.] 



1. Cephaloscyllium sabella, Broussonet. 



In acknowledging the receipt of a copy of my paper on the " Scientific 

 Results of the New Zealand, Government Trawling Expedition," Mr. 

 J. Douglas Ogilby wrote to me as follow^s : " I think you will have to 

 change the i^ame Cephaloscyllium laticeps, Dumeril, to C. sabella, Gmelin or 

 Broussonet, Syst. Nat., p. 1489." 



Like Mr. Ogilby. I am unable to consult Broussonet's paper, but the 

 following, translated from Gmelin,* appears to be his diagnosis : — 



" Species with an anal fin and spiracles. 



" Squalus sabella. — First dorsal fin opposite to the ventrals. Brousson. 

 act. Paris, 1780, p. 648, n. 1. Habitat in New Zealand, named from its color- 

 ation, spotted with black ; entirely white below ; 2| ft. long ; depressed 

 in front ; allied to caniculce, head greatly depressed, and the shark is dis- 

 tinguished by the position of the first dorsal fin. 



" Head short, broad, obtuse ; eyes deeply set, pupil oblong, iris bronze- 

 coloured ; teeth compressed, short, triangular, acute, with a small basal 

 cusp, disposed in six series ; tongue thick, short, very obtuse ; spiracle 

 round, of moderate size ; dorsal fins subquadrate, the second opposite to the 

 anal ; pectorals very large, originating near to the third gill-opening ; ventrals 

 separate, pointed behind ; lateral line near to and parallel to the back." 



This description, applied to a New Zealand shark, can refer only to 

 Cephaloscyllium, and, as Dumeril'sf name Scyllium laticeps was not pub- 

 lished until 1853, the earlier one of Broussonet will have to be used, and I 

 have to thank Mr. Ogilby for draAving my attention to the fact. 



2. Centrophorus plunketi, sp. nov. Plate XXXVII. 



In August last Messrs. Dennis Brothers, fishmongers, of C hristchurch, 

 sent a shark to me for determination, and subsequently presented it to the 

 Canterbury Museum. It was caught by hook and. line off Kaikoura, about 

 100 miles north of Christchurch, by Mr. A. D. Goodall, who has kindly fur- 

 nished me with the following particulars : " The shark was one of three 

 caught by my mate and me on the 13th August, one mile from shore, off 

 Riley's Islands, in 120 fathoms of water. We have never seen its like 

 before; but two fishermen say they have caught one each in the same 

 locality — one before our lot, and one, ' a very large one,' since. The 

 bottom of the sea in the vicinity of where the specimen was taken is a 

 mud terrace with steep sides, and with rocky cliffs in places. By going a 

 few chains to seaward of where we were anchored you may get 200 to 300 

 fathoms and more. Although deep fishing is done on other grounds in the 

 neighbourhood, none of these sharks has been caught." 



The sln',rk belongs to the genus Centrophorus, a genus not hitherto 

 recognised from New Zealand, and is regarded as being new to science. It 



* Gmelin, Svst. Nat., ed. xiii, 1789, p. 1489. 

 t Dumeril, Rev. et Mag. "^ool., 1853, p. 84. 



