452 Zoological Society. 



As these scales are very easily detached, and the gill-plates remain 

 hard and silvery, after they are removed with the epidermis, it must 

 be difficult to distinguish an injured specimen from truttaceus ; whose 

 description in other respects exactly accords with salar, except that 

 the latter has the suborbital- very faintly denticulated, and two rays 

 fewer in the soft dorsal. 



3. Aplodactylus arctidens. Aplo. dentibus oris tricitspidatis, 

 superioribus in serie octuplici, inferioribus in serie quintuplici 

 dispositis ; ccecis pylori quatuor. 



Radii:— -Br. 6 — 6; P. 9 et 6 ; V. 1, 5 ; D. 16—1, 17; A. 3, 8 ; 

 C. 16-f-. 



This species differs from A. punctatus of the Chilian seas (the only 

 species previously known) in its dentition, but resembles it so much 

 in external form, colours, and markings, as well as in anatomical 

 structure, that it cannot be placed in a separate genus. In the 

 Histoire des Poissons the teeth of denlatus are described as follows : 

 " Les dents sont disposees sur trois rangees a la machoire superieure 

 et sur deux a V inferieure : elles sont aplaties et ont leur bords arrondis 

 et denteles en petits festons ; elles sont tres-semblables a celles des cre- 

 nidens, on en compte quatorze de chaque cote" a la machoire superieure 

 et treize a Vinferieure . Derriere ces rangees anttrieures il y a des 

 petites dents grenues sur une bande etroite a chaque mdchoire." In the 

 Van Diemen's Land fish, the teeth stand in eight or nine crowded 

 ranks in the upper jaw, and in five or six in the lower one, those of 

 the interior rows being very much smaller in all their dimensions, but 

 otherwise shaped exactly like the teeth of the exterior rows, which 

 resemble those of punctatus. Their points show three small lobes, 

 the middle lobe being largest and most prominent. The species 

 further differs from punctatus in having four caeca, but its food ap- 

 pears to be similar, the intestines having been found filled with large 

 fragments of sea weed, apparently Viva umbilicalis. 



4 and 5. Two new species of gurnard were then mentioned as the 

 first of the genus that have been brought from the Australian coasts, 

 though one species (Trigla kumu) is known to inhabit the seas of 

 New Zealand. They were stated to agree with that species, with 

 several Indian ones, and with Trigla pceciloptera of the Mediterra- 

 nean, in their large pectoral fins being ornamented with eye-like 

 marks similar to those on the wings of some lepidopterous insects. 

 One of them, Trigla polyommata, has minute cycloid scales on 

 the body, an unarmed lateral line and the dorsal plates confined to 

 the first dorsal, there being no dilatation whatever of the interspinous 

 bones of the second dorsal. All the spines of the head are stiletto- 

 shaped, and one whose base occupies the whole anterior end of tr- 



