292 RECORDS OF THK AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM. 



SKELETON of LUVARUS IMPERIALIS, RAFINESQUE. 

 (A Fish nrw to the Western Pacific Fauna). 



By Edgar R. Waite, F.L.S., Zoologist. 



(Plates xlv., xlvi., and Fig. 22). 



Luvarus imperialis, Rafinesque. 



Luvarihs, known from the Mediterranean, the Atlantic (from 

 Madeira northwards to the coast of Cornwall), and also off the 

 Californian coast,' is now to be added to the Australian fauna. 



On September 5th last, the Curator received information from 

 Mr. J. A. Brodie, Chief Inspector of Fisheries for New South 

 Wales, that a strange fish had been stranded at Bermagui. The 

 communication was accompanied by a rough sketch, and the 

 following particulars noted by Mr. Elias Laycock, one of the 

 Fishery Inspectors:— "Length about six feet two inches, girth 

 four feet eight inches, spread of tail two feet three inches, 

 weight between two and three hundredweight, colour salmon and 

 silver, flesh white." 



Rough as was the sketch, it was so characteristic that we had 

 no difficulty in recognising it as representing Luvarus. To have 

 recorded the existence of this Atlantic form from the South Pacific 

 on the evidence of a rough sketch would, under any circumstance, 

 have been so unsatisfactory, that every effort was made to secure 

 at least some portion of the original. Our best thanks are due to 

 Mr. Brodie in this connection, for later in the month we received 

 the skeleton, broken and incomplete, yet in sufficiently good con- 

 dition to enable our articulator to prepare it for the Museum, 

 and for me to add a little to our knowledge of this interesting 

 form. 



After this paper was written, we (on January 7th, 1902) received 

 from Mr. Brodie further particulars : the information, contained 

 in a letter from Inspector W. H. Newton, is as follows: — 



"In the beginning of last August, Mr. Elias Laycock and his 

 son, of Port Hacking, found a very large fish stranded on a beach 

 at Bermagui, five hundred yards up the river, the fish being alive 

 and in good condition, with the exception of one side fin, which 

 had been Ijroken. Tiie colour of the fish, when alive, resembled 

 that of the Nannygai ( Beryx ajfinis, Giinth.), and the flesh inside 



1 See page 297. 



