BY J. DOUGLAS OGILBY. J 31 



Body fusiform, little compressed, with the dorso-rostral profile 

 slightl}' curved; snout short, depressed, prominent; mouth snicall, 

 with horizontal cleft. Opercle spineless; preopercle with a double 

 ridge. Gills four; six branchiostegals; pseudobranchia? present. 

 Jaws, vomer, and palatines with a band of villiform teeth, the outer 

 series in the former being enlarged, conical, and curved. Two 

 separate dorsal fins, the first with one stout and four or five 

 slender, flexible rays, the second longer, with one spine and nine 

 to twelve articulated and branched rays: anal long, with a single 

 stout spine: ventrals thoracic. Scales of moderate size, cycloid, 

 with the margins feebty crenulated. No lateral line. Pyloric 

 appendages in small number. Air-vessel simple. 



E t y m o 1 o g y : — //eXn?, black; raivUi, a band. 



Type : — 2Ielanot(Hnia vjgrans, Gill, = Atherina nigrans, 

 Richardson. 



Distribution: — Fresh and brackish waters of northern 

 and eastern Australia, extending southwards at least as far as 

 the Richmond River District, and possibly further since, after 

 describing A7'isteus Jluvioti/is, Castelnau remarks : — "I have two 

 specimens of this fish, one, two and a half inches long. It comes 

 from the Murrumbidgee .... the other was found by 

 Mr. Duboulay in Rope's Creek, and is three and a half inches 

 long. It has a very feebly marked black longitudinal stripe on 

 each side." This latter specimen is probably a Jfefanotcenia, and 

 the locality given would bring the range of that genus as far 

 south as the metropolitan district. 



It is much to be regretted that owing to the uncertainty which 

 prevails as to the correct name of the genus which I have called 

 Rliombatr actus in this paper, 1 have been obliged to adoj^t as the 

 sponsor of the family a genus which is distinctly less specialized 

 and, in its little compressed, non-ventradiform body more closely 

 approaches to exotic foi'ms than the others. If I could have 

 satisfied myself that future investigations would justify the 

 separation of Ehomhatractus from Pseudomvgil and Aida, I should 



