NOTES AND EXHIBITS. 575 



small species, attaining maturity at about one-half the size of the 

 mature Trumpeter Whiting (»S'. maculata), which is the next 

 species in point of size. It is the cleanest-looking of our 

 Whitings, being generally semitransparent, with a whitish - 

 silvery body and a broad silvery band along each side. The 

 dorsal surface is inclined to be of a rufous tinge, while 

 along each side, above the median line, are a number of 

 reddish or reddish-brown somewhat narrow diagonal blotches. 

 Looked at from above, these are seen to be arranged 

 symmetrically on each side. They are not nearly so prominent 

 as the large irregular dusky blotches to be seen on the sides of 

 S. maculata; from which species it also differs in the number of 

 scales in the lateral line, and in the number of rays in the second 

 dorsal and anal fins. A v'ery noticeable character also, is that, 

 unlike S. ciliata and S. maculata, there is no dark spot at the 

 base of the pectoral fin. This is the species that was obtained 

 so plentifully with the trawl during the ' Thetis ' expedition in 

 1898 in depths ranging from 16 to 8-t fathoms, and which was 

 referred by Waite to the Trumpeter Whiting, S. iiiaculata* It 

 would have been remarkable if a littoral fish like S. maculata, 

 whose natural habitat in our waters is the muddy bottoms of 

 harbours and coastal lakes and estuaries, were found to have 

 such a great bathj^metrical distribution as its capture in 84 

 fathoms would imply. So far there is no authentic record of the 

 capture of ^. macidata at sea excepting on muddy bottoms, such as 

 occur, for instance, at the entrance to the Hawkesbury River." 



•' Sillago bassensis is the common Whiting of Tasmania, where, 

 following Johnston,f it is at present usuall}' distinguished as 

 *S'. ciliata (our Sand Whiting) from which, however, it greatly 

 differs. 



- "The young fry of this Whiting may be obtained by the hauling- 

 net on fairly shallow sandy bottoms off the coastal beaches and at 

 the entrance to Port Jackson, and some other somewhat similar 



* Mem. Aust. Mus. iv., 1S99, p. 109. 

 t Proc. Roy. Soc. Tas. 1S90, p. 25. 



