BY J. DOUGLAS OGILBY. 743 



specimens are everywhere powdered with minute dusky dots ; 

 back with or without a series of dark blotches; a similar series of 

 more or less irregularly arranged, often concurrent blotches 

 almost always present along the middle of the sides and ending, 

 in a large dark blotch at the root of the caudal fin; side of head 

 generally with two oblique dark l)ars, the upper from the postero- 

 superior angle of the eye to the axil of the pectoral, forming a 

 conspicuous spot on the upper half of the base; the lower from 

 the snout along the inferior margin of the eye to the edge of the 

 opercle, the interspace sometimes as dark as the bars; chin purple; 

 a dusky blotch on the gill-rakers; dorsal fins, the first with a 

 broad orange to pale yellow or hyaline dark-edged median l)and, 

 the second with two or three similar but narrow bands near the 

 base, the outer half clouded with purple or violet; caudal yellowish- 

 brown, closely ornamented with a network of more or less regular 

 dark spots; anal stone-gray or vinous, tipped with violet, often 

 with the anterior ray brown and a median posterior golden patch; 

 A-entrals violet or gray, sometimes washed with gold towards the 

 tip; jjectorals olive-green, with or without a dusky shade on the 

 upper rays and with a more or less brilliant golden basal band. 

 Irides golden brown. 



As a rule the more brilliant colours — the purple, blue, and 

 orange — may be taken as the prerogative of the male fish, Ijut 

 this is not always the case, one or two females in my possession 

 being quite as brightly marked as their partners. 



All my specimens were obtained during the spring, and I cannot 

 therefore say whether any difference in colouration takes place 

 during the breeding season. 



This species has been exceptionally unfortunate in its describers; 

 Krefft — who obtained his examples from Dr. James C Cox — 

 described them as having seven rays in the anterior dorsal fin; 

 his type specimen, which came from the Mulgoa Creek, a tributary 

 of the Nepean River, into which it falls not far from Penrith, 

 and two others from Rope's Creek in the same district, still 

 bearing labels in Krefft's own handwriting, are fortunately in 

 existence and possess six rays only in every instance ; he also 



