62 



ON A GALAXIAS FROM MOUNT KOSCIUSKO 

 By J. Douglas Ogilby. 



At tlie meeting of this Society in March, 1882 (Vol. vii. p. 

 107) the late Sir William Macleay read a paper descriptive of a 

 species of Galaxias which had been forwai-ded to him by Baron von 

 Mueller to whom examples had been sent by Mr. S. Findlay, who 

 found them inhabiting the streams which drain the southei'n 

 slopes of Mount Kosciusko and form a section of the watershed 

 of the Snowy River; for this form he proposed, at the request of 

 Baron von Mueller, the name of Galaxias jindlayi in honour of 

 its discoverer and collector. 



With the exception of its inclusion in the " Supplement " to 

 Macleay 's "Descriptive Catalogue of Australian Fishes" there does 

 not appear to be any further published information respecting the 

 Kosciusko Galaxiid, nor do«.ny specimens from that district seem 

 to have been collected until the autumn of 1889, when a few 

 examples were secured and brought to Sydne}^ by Mr. Richard 

 Helms on the occasion of his visit to that mountain, a short account 

 of which is published in the Records of the Australian Museum, 

 Vol. i. pp. 11-16. These specimens were also obtained from 

 streams flowing into the Snowy River, and writing of their 

 distribution Mr. Helms observes (p. 13) : — '■'■ The absence of 

 Galaxias at this elevation" (Wilkinson's Valley) "struck me as 

 peculiar. It is, however, remarkable that on the Snowy River 

 side these fishes are met with almost everywhere." 



The paragraph from which this quotation is taken is not clear, 

 but the most reasonable deduction from it is that, in Mr. Helms' 

 opinion, Galaxiids were scarce or even absent on the Murrum- 

 bidgee slope. 



Pressure of business prevented a full examination of these 

 specimens being made at the time, and they were put on one side 

 and neglected until the commencement of the current year, when 

 Mr. Helms requested me to furnish him with a report on these 

 fishes, and it was then discovered that owing to the changes 



