OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 225 



AUSTRALIAN FISHES. 



New or little known Species. 



By Count F. De Castelnau. 



Plates II. and III. 



The Paper that I present to the Linnean Society of New South 

 Wales contains the description of a number of Australian Fishes, 

 which appear to me to be either little known or entirely new to 

 science. It forms a succession to those I have published in the 

 proceedings of the Zoological and Acclimatisation Society of 

 Victoria for the years 1872 and 1873, and also in the Essays con- 

 tained in the official reports of the Victorian Intercolonial Exhi- 

 bitions for 1873 and 1876. 



Beryx affinis. 

 Beryx affinis, Gunther Catal., vol. 1, page 13. 



Height of body, twice and a quarter in total length without 

 the caudal ; head, twice and three-quarters in the same, eye 

 nearly one-third of the length of the head, preeopercule, with a 

 rather strong flat spine at its inferior angle ; the lower limb finely 

 serrated ; the interopercule is strongly denticulated on its lower 

 angle, and is finely serrated at its lower margin ; operculum has 

 three strong spines, and its margin is serrated. 



The dorsal fin is low at its anterior part, very high towards 

 its centre, and from thence becomes shorter to its extremity ; it 

 has seven spines and twelve rays ; the first ray is the highest ; 

 this dorsal fin is long, and begins on a line perpendicular to 

 the centre of the base of the pectoral ; caudal very strongly 

 forked ; its inferior lobe considerably shorter than its upper 

 one ; anal formed of four spines and twelve rays ; ventrals with 

 one strong spine and seven rays, pectorals with thirteen rays, 



] lateral line straight with six scales above and twelve below ; 

 it extends over about forty-three scales. 



The general colour is of a most beautiful pink, with silver 

 stripes on the body, the edges of the opercules of the last colour. 



