BY WILLIAM MACLEAY, F.L.S. 375 



compressed body, its deciduous scales, and the bright golden 

 vitta on each side near the back. It is about seven inches in 

 length. My first acquaintance with it was about three weeks 

 ago, when a shoal seems to have visited the harbour, and I found 

 one morning the beach at Elizabeth Bay strewed with bushels of 

 them, left by a fisherman who had hauled his seine there during 

 the night, and taken away I believe as many as he conveniently 

 could. I find however, that it is a fish well known to the 

 fishermen, called by them "herring" and sometimes " Mar ay" 

 though that name more properly belongs to Clupea sagax. Like 

 that species also, it visits our coasts in winter in enormous shoals, 

 and also always travelling in a northerly direction. It seems 

 probable, however, from what the fishermen tell me, that its 

 breeding grounds are not far distant, as some of them are to be 

 found in the Hawkesbury, about Mullet Island, at all seasons of 

 the year, and the young fry of apparently the same species are 

 sometimes very abundant there. Dr. Bleeker gives Java and 

 Celebes as localities in which this fish is found, sometimes, he 

 says, they are caught in great numbers, and form a very 

 important part of the food of the population of these countries. 

 I can myself vouch for the excellence and delicacy of flavour of 

 these beautiful fishes. I look upon them as far superior to the 

 common herring of Scotland as an article of food, and I verily 

 belive that preserved in oil in the manner of sardines, they would 

 eclipse even these delicacies. 



8. Clupea hypelosoma, Bleek. 



Atlas Ichthyol. Chip. p. 104, PI. 267, fig. 2. Gkmth. Cat. Pish. 



Vol. 7, p. 431. 



This species is very like the last. It is proportionally deeper, 

 the maxillary bone seems to extend back under the eye further 

 than in the other, and there is no golden band along the upper 

 part of each side. I subjoin the specific characters given by 

 Dr. Gunther, Dr. Bleeker' s being unnecessarily elaborate. 



