BY J. DOUGLAS 0GIL13Y. 735 



This handsome species can be at once distinguished from com- 

 2)ressus, of which it is the southern representative, l)y its more 

 elongate body, that of coinpressus, the type of which I have com- 

 pared with ni}^ specimens, having a depth of 3^ in the length, 

 \\hile the depth of the head is almost equal to its length ; the 

 same measurements are maintained in two examples from the 

 Tweed River in the Macleay collection. 



In 1867 Dr. Franz Steindachner described a species of Caras- 

 siops fi'om Cape York, for which he proposed the name of Eleotris 

 brevirostris,^ and this northern form appears to approach more 

 closely to the Sydney species than to Krefft's; in fact at a later 

 page (325) of the same volume Steindachner himself confuses the 

 northern and southern fishes by recording two examples of brevi- 

 rostris from Port Jackson. 



In the Annals and Magazine of Natural History (4) xv. 1875, 

 p. 147, Mr. O'Shaughnessy 'states that the brevirostris of Stein- 

 dachner is identical wdth the compj-essiis of Krefft, but for the 

 reasons given abo\'e, as well as on account of the larger scales of 

 the former, I cannot agree with him. 



Instead of uniting the different forms in a single species of 

 extraordinary variability, I jDi'efer, at least for the present, to 

 recognise four distinct but closely related species of Carp- 

 Gudgeons, namely: — (1) longi, from the metropolitan district of 

 New South Wales; (2) compressus, from the Clarence, Richmond, 

 and Tweed River districts; (3) brevirostris, from the Mary River 

 — Australian Museum f and 1 Challenger — and Port Denison — 

 Krefft — to Cape York, — Steindachner — and (4) elevatus, Macleay, 

 from Port Darwin, North-western Australia. 



I obtained nine examples of this handsome ^species from one of 

 the waterholes on the estate of the Hon. Wm. Long on the 24th 

 of April last, and have much pleasure in dedicating it to that 

 gentleman in remembrance of the pleasant afternoon spent at 

 Chipping Norton. 



* Sitzb. Ak. Wieii, Ivi. i. 1867, p. 314. 

 t Two small bleached specimens in very bad condition. 



