20 Transactions. — Zoology. 



Art. II. — On a Specimen of Kegalecus recently Stranded in 



Otayo Harbour. 



By T. Jeffery Parker, B.Sc, C.M.Z.S., Professor of Biology 

 iu the University of Otago. 



[Read before the Otago Institute, 12th July, 1887.] 



Plate V. 



About four years ago I communicated to the Institute (7) ::; a 

 description of a fine specimen of the Great Eibbon-Fish which 

 had been cast ashore at Moeraki, and purchased for the Otago 

 University Museum. The skeleton was prepared, and a detailed 

 account of it published in a subsequent paper (8). After being 

 for some time in the Museum, it was sent to the Colonial and 

 Indian Exhibition of 1886 as part of a collection illustrating 

 New Zealand zoology. This specimen, which is interesting as 

 being apparently the first complete skeleton of Regalecus on 

 record, is now in the British Museum (Natural History), South 

 Kensington. 



The fish which forms the subject of the present communica- 

 tion was cast ashore in Otago Harbour, about li miles north 

 of the village of Portobello, and 10 miles north of Dunedin, on 

 the 3rd of June last. It was found by a settler, Mr. Harwood, 

 who very generously presented it to the Museum, and even took 

 the trouble to drive into Dunedin on purpose to inform me of 

 the capture. But for his prompt action the fish would certainly 

 have been considerably damaged before it could have been 

 brought to the Museum, and might have been hopelessly 

 ruined. 



The specimen, which was 11 feet long, was specially interest- 

 ing from the fact that the characteristic crest or nuchal fin was 

 practically perfect, instead of being, as in the vast majority of 

 examples which have come under the notice of naturalists, so 

 damaged as to make its precise characters very doubtful. 



As I was anxious to secure both a stuffed specimen and a 

 skeleton, I had the skin removed, with the exception of that of 

 the head, which was too thin to allow of its being separated 

 from the underlying bone. A cast of the head was taken in 

 plaster of Paris, and was attached to a wooden model of the 

 body over which the skin was stretched, the whole being after- 

 wards silvered and painted from tracings taken of the fresh lish. 

 The fins were " made up," as the rays were required for the 

 skeleton. In this way a specimen has been obtained which 



* The figures in thick type refer to the bibliographical list at the eud of 

 the paper. 



