42 RECORDS OF THE AtTSTRALlAN MUSEUM. 



For reasons stated below, I regard the Lord Howe Island 

 example as the type of a new species. It may be characterised 

 as follows : — 



D. ii. vii. 12. A. iii. 12. P. 10. V. i. 5. C. 11 + 4. L. lat. 

 21 + 6. L. tr. 3 + 10. 



Length of head 2-9, lieight of body 2 4 in the total length 

 (caudal excluded). The eye is 5-6, the pectoral 1-4, and the 

 central caudal rays 2-57 in the length of the head. The height 

 of the head, which is trenchant above, is equal to its length, and 

 its anterior profile very steep. Jaws equal, each with a pair of 

 canines anteriorly, followed by a single series of rather spaced 

 conical teeth to the number of 9-10. The eye is set high on the 

 head, leaving the cheek deep. The body is deep and compressed, 

 the height of the caudal pedicel slightly more than its length 

 behind the last dorsal ray, or 2-2 in the length of the head. 



The first two dorsal spines are widely and entirely separated 

 from the remainder of the fin ; the anterior spine, which measures 

 1'5 in the length of the head, arises on the occiput slightly behind 

 the eye ; the second spine is two-thirds the length of the first; 

 the third spine is one-third the length of the first, and the fin 

 gradually increases in height, the last ray being rather more than 

 half the length of the first spine, and reaching the base of the 

 caudal rays. 



The first anal spine stands beneath the twelfth scale of the 

 lateral line, and is little more than half the length of the third, 

 which equals the third dorsal. The fin terminates a little posterior 

 to the end of the dorsal. 



The pectoral is 1 "4 in the length of the head ; its upper ray is 

 broad and strong. The ventral is somewhat shorter, but its first 

 ray, which is produced beyond the others, attains the length of 

 the pectoral ; its spine is weak, equal to the ninth dorsal in 

 length. The caudal is rounded posteriorly. 



Scales. — The head is naked with the exception of two or three 

 rudimentary scales at the hinder margin of the orbit. The lateral 

 line is placed on the third row of scales below the dorsal fin, is 

 interrupted on the twenty-first scale, but continued three rows 

 lower, along six scales in the median line of the caudal pedicel. 



Colours. — After immersion in spirits for two or three weeks 

 the general ground tint is a dirty cream There is a dark bluish 

 line down the centre of the forehead and on the preopercle from 

 below the eye, running obliquely backwards and downwards, a 

 dark grey mark, relieved by light blue lines, which in part 

 become broken up into dots. The hinder part of the opercle is 

 similarly tinted and ornamented. Three dark vertical bands 

 encircle the body, the first from the spinous dorsal to behind the 

 origin of the ventral, the second from the anterior dorsal rays to 



