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A NEW FAMILY OF AUSTRALIAN FISHES. 

 By J. Do CO LAS Ogilby. 



The family, of which the following diagnosis is given, is in- 

 tended to accommodate those forms of percesocoid fishes in which, 

 among other characters which separate them from the Sphyrcb- 

 nidcB and Atherinidcc, the first dorsal fin is composed of a single 

 pungent and two or more flexible, unarticulated rays, and by the 

 position of the anal fin, which is more elongated and advanced 

 than in the typical Atherinids, and which on account of its 

 anterior insertion pushes forward the position of the anal orifice 

 and of the ventral fins so far that the latter become thoracic, and 

 the family thus makes a distinct advance towards the moi'e 

 typical Acanthopterygians. 



To Prof Kner and Dr. Steindachner, and suljsequently to 

 Count Castelnau, the claim of these little fishes to rank as a dis- 

 tinct family has commended itself. Prof. Kner, in 1865, alluded 

 to the expedienc}'^ of forming a family, Pseudomugilidce, for the 

 reception of certain small fishes, alleged to have been obtained by 

 the collectors of the Novara Expedition at Sydney, and to which 

 he gave the name of Fseudomugil signifer; he, howe^'er, gave no 

 definition of the proposed family, though during the following 

 year he, in conjunction with Dr. Steindachner, again makes 

 incidental mention of the family while describing a closely allied 

 genus, Strabo; these authors also neglect to formulate a diagnosis. 



In 1873, Count Castelnau, after describing as new a genus 

 which he named ZantecJa, notices the differences in "its characters 

 from all the families established till now," he being doubtless 

 unaware of the previous discoveries of Drs. Kner and Stein- 

 dachner; this author also places his genus "near the, Atherinidoe,^^ 

 and considers that it " will be the type of a new family, which 

 might be called Zanteclidce." In the previous year the same 

 author, after diagnosing a new genus as Atherinosoma, had 

 suggested that it might prove necessary to form a new family for 



