BY N. DE MIKLOUHO-MACLAY AND WILLIAM MACLEAY, F.L.S. 427 



At that time we contemplated, as indeed the title of our Paper 

 indicated, a succession of Papers descriptive and illustrative of all 

 the Plagiostornatous Fishes, known to inhabit the Pacific Ocean. 

 A lengthened absence from the country on the part of one of us, 

 has prevented the fulfilment of our intentions with the regularity 

 which we contemplated. We now resume our task, but only at 

 present to deal with what may be regarded as matter supplementary 

 to our first Paper. 



A few weeks ago the .Australian Museum received among a 

 collection of Fishes from Japan, a specimen of the Heterodontus of 

 those seas, a fish which from its first discovery has been accepted 

 by naturalists almost without exception as identical with H. 

 Phillippi — the Port Jackson Shark. We were led to suspect when 

 writing our former Paper, that the Japanese species was distinct, 

 and that possibly the same might be the case with the species found 

 by Dr. Bleeker in the East Indian Archipelago, and we stated some 

 reasons for our belief (Proc. Lin. Soc, N. S. W., Yol. 3, p. 313), 

 but authors were evidently puzzled on the subject, and the 

 confusion had become so universal, that until now, when we have 

 the fish actually before us, we were unable to pronounce with any 

 certainty as to the distinctness of the species. We have no longer 

 any doubt on the subject, the species, though somewhat resembling 

 H. Phillippi, is most distinct in its marking, which in H. 

 Phillippi is very constant, in its dentition and various other less 

 important particulars. To give some idea of the confusion 

 that exists among authors respecting the Fishes of this genus 

 we may mention that the figure (a very bad one) of Cestracion 

 Phillippi in the "Voy. of the Coquille, PI. 2," is not the Pert 

 Jackson fish, that Muller and Henle's figure (Plate 31), is most 

 likely the Japanese species, the number of vertical bands being 

 identical, that the tooth given in the same plate as that of Phillippi 

 is certainly not of either species, and that Schlegel in the 

 Fauna Japonica describes the Japanese fish as Cestracion 

 Phillippi. It is very probable that the Cestracion Zebra of 

 Gray and Richardson, and Heterodontus Zebra of other authors, 

 were properly described as distinct species, and were really the 



