736 ox SOME AUSTKALIAN ELEOTHIN'.IE, 



The difference in culuur l^etween the sexes is so marked tliat it 

 was only when examining my specimens oil the following day that 

 I recognised the relationship ; this is possibly more apparent 

 during the spawning season than at other times. 



The dark purplish ground colour which is so conspicuous a 

 feature, in the males at least, of both compressus and hrevirostris 

 is entirely absent in longi, its place being taken by orange, and so 

 brilliant is this colour that it was only with difficulty that I could 

 persuade man}' persons that they were not Gold-fishes. Curiously 

 enough, a small specimen, which had evidently suffered from an 

 accident in its youth, had partially reproduced the \ariety of the 

 Golden Carp known as the " Telescope fish," the eyes being pro- 

 duced in front of the head. 



The specimens measured from (S2 to 100 millimeters and were 

 all full of spawn. 



The types are in my possession. 



K K E F p T I u s, gen.nov. 



Eleotris, sp. auctt. 



Body oblong, compressed posteriorly, the back Ijroad and tlat 

 in front of the dorsal fins, rounded behind; head rather large, 

 about as wide as deep, the snout moderate and but little 

 depressed; mouth small and oblique, the lips fleshy; premaxillaries 

 slightly ])rotractile ; maxillaries narrow, with the distal end 

 exposed and bent forwards; lower jaw a little the longer. Jaws 

 with a band of small hooked teeth, the outer series enlarged and 

 fixed; lower pharyngeals forming together a subtriangular patch, 

 armed with small acute fixed teeth, the anterior and symphyseal 

 series more or less enlarged; nostrils widely separated, the anterior 

 valvular; eyes lateral; none of the bones of the head armed; gill- 

 openings extending forwards to below the angle of the ]ireopercle, 

 ^he isthmus a little wider than the interorbital region ; five 

 branchiostegals; pseud obranchite present, small; gill-rakers short, 

 stout, and serrulate. Dorsal fins separate, with vii, i 8 rays, the 

 spinous ones flexible; anal fin commencing behind the origin of 

 the second dorsal, with i S ra}s; the last soft ray of the second 



