COAST FISHES 



PART III. THE ANTARCTIC ZONEi 

 By J. R. Norman 



Department of Zoology, British Museum (Natural History) 



(Plate I; Text-figs. 1-62) 

 INTRODUCTION 



THE collections dealt with in this, the third and final part of the report on the coast 

 fishes, include about 1500 specimens, representing 42 species, of which five prove 

 to be new to science,'- and five others were previously unrepresented in the National 

 Collection. The fishes belonging to the division Nototheniiformes are particularly well 

 represented, and, together with the fine series of specimens recently obtained by the 

 B.A.N.Z. Antarctic Research Expedition, and the rich material already in the collection 

 of the British Museum, form an excellent basis for a new revision of this interesting 

 group. Of the 86 species of fish recorded from the Antarctic Zone, no less than 65 

 (or 75 per cent) belong to the division Nototheniiformes. It may be noted that of these 

 65 species, 60 (or 92 per cent) are represented in the British Museum: I have been able 

 to examine examples of three more species in Paris and elsewhere, so that only two 

 species are included solely on the evidence of published descriptions. One of these 

 were obtained by the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (1911-1914), and is preserved 

 in the museum at Adelaide, South Australia ; the other formed part of the collection 

 made by the ' Gauss ' (Deutsche Siidpolar-Expedition, 1901-1903), and is presumably to 

 be found in the Berlin Museum. A visit to the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle 

 in Paris enabled me to examine a number of specimens obtained by the two French 

 Antarctic Expeditions. 



My thanks are due to the members of the Discovery Committee for permission to 

 study these collections and to prepare this report. I am also indebted to Professor 

 J. Pellegrin, Dr C. F. Angel, and Dr P. Chabanaud, for many courtesies during my 

 short stay in Paris ; to Dr V. Van Straelen, for kindly allowing me to borrow the unique 

 types of Gerlachea australis and Racovitzia glacialis preserved in the Musee Royal 

 d'Histoire Naturelle de Belgique; and to Dr H. Rendahl, for the loan of the unique 

 type of Chionodraco hamatiis preserved in the Naturhistoriska Riksmuseum at Stock- 

 holm. To all these gentlemen my thanks are due and are gratefully tendered. I am also 

 indebted to Mr G. C. L. Bertram for allowing me to study the small collection of fishes 



1 For details as to the limits of this region see p. 87. 



^ Preliminary descriptions of three of these new species were published recently, see Norman, 1937, 

 Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., (10) xx, p. 475. 



