268 DESCRIPTIONS OP AUSTRALIAN FISHES, 



the others, When fresh, the fish was particularly brilliant, being 

 shot with opalescent-blue above, and gold below. The back was 

 faintly marbled with olive-green, and there were spots of the 

 same colour along each side. The abdominal spots were brown, 

 and the fins green. 



Described from a specimen 925 mm, long from the snout to the 

 end of the middle caudal rays, and weighing eighteen and three- 

 quarter pounds; its girth is twenty inches. It is closely allied 

 to G. hilhieatus Riippel,* but differs in having seven instead of 

 six dorsal finlets, and the lateral line branches at the verticle of 

 the middle of the pectoral instead of behind that fin. It is evi- 

 dently identical with Thyniius bicarinatus Quoy & Gaimard, 

 which was apparently described from a very imperfect drawing 

 of a fish captured in Shark Bay, West Australia. The illustra- 

 tion published by these authors is very crude, the upper jaw 

 being shown as longer than the lower, and the pectorals and 

 ventrals are elongate, while no attempt has been made to pre- 

 serve the structural details of the other fins. The presence of 

 two lateral lines and seven dorsal finlets, however, suggests that 

 the drawing represents the same species as is described above, 

 while the fact that the original was captured in Australian waters 

 strengthens this view. 



JjOc. — For the opportunity of describing and figuring this rare 

 fish, I am indebted to Mr. C. H. Gorrick, who caught it early in 

 June, 1914, off Cook Island, a few miles from the Tweed River 

 Heads, New South Wales. It took a garfish bait which was 

 being trolled at about three or four miles per hour, and was 

 apparently one of many of the same kind, since it was hooked in 

 the midst of a large school of feeding fish. It did not fight as 

 hard as an ordinary Tunny does, nor did it make the long runs 

 of a Spanish Mackerel. The water where it was hooked was 

 about eight fathoms deep, with a bottom of rocky reefs. 



The fish described and figured as Nesogrammus piersonij is 

 evidently very similar to my specimen, differing principally in 



* Riippel, Neue Wirbelth. Faun. Abyssin., 1835-40, p.39, PI. xii., fig.2. 

 fEvermann & Seale, Bull. U. S. Fish. Bur., xxvi., 1907, p.61, fig.3. 



