438 DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE OF AUSTRALIAN FISHES, 



obscure, variegated with red, beneath, white and spotted ; ventrals 

 white. 



Coasts of Victoria, Port Phillip. Seventeen inches long. 



I doubt this being a Centropogon, and I have never seen the 

 characters of M. Guichenot's genus Neosehastes, 



Genus Holoxenus, Gunth. 



Body compressed, covered like the fins with loose skin, which 

 is either finely granular or provided with minute scales. The 

 greater part of the spinous dorsal forms a separate fin, some of 

 the posterior spines being contiguous to the soft fin. Three anal 

 spines. Caudal rounded. Pectoral rays simj)le, not prolonged 

 or thickened. Eye small. Mouth of moderate width with bands 

 of villiform teeth. Gill opening very wide. Four gills with a 

 cleft behind the fourth. Pseudobranchiae. 



This is a genus of doubtful position. Dr. Gunther placed it 

 with some doubt among the Cirrhitid<B and Dr. Bleeker among 

 the ScorpcBnidcB. The affinity to the latter seems to me to be 

 the greater. 



299. Holoxenus cutaneus, Gunth. 



Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. 1876, Vol. XVII., p. 393. 



D. 7. 3/10. A. 9. C. 12. P. 11. V. 1/5. 



The height of the body equals the length of the head, and is 

 two-fifths of the total (without caudal) . Head strongly compresed, 

 with the small eye on the anterior half, not far below the upper 

 profile, which is concave. Snout of moderate length ; mouth 

 oblique with the lower jaw somewhat j)rominent. Vertical fins 

 high, the anterior dorsal with a subsemicircular outline, with 

 pungent spines, the first inserted above the eye, the third and 

 fourth longest. Caudal peduncle narrow. The pectoral and 

 ventral fins extend to the anal ; the ventral attached in its entire 



