27 



ihe last one. The soft rays are longer than any of the 

 spines, and the difference is still greater in the anal, which ' 

 has also small spines. The fins and the candal are scaly 

 at the base, and there is a patch of scales on the pectoral. 

 The caudal is notched. 



The lateral line curves downwards from its commence- 

 ment, but not evenly, and becomes horizontal on reaching 

 the end of the dorsal. The scales of the body are con- 

 centrically ridged on the uncovered disk. The specimen 

 has entirely lost its original colours during its immersion 

 in spirits, and no markings can be traced, except three 

 rows of alternate dark and light specks on the dorsal, 

 which are not shown in the figure. 



Length, 5|- inches. 



H.\B. Coasts of Australia. 



GiAUCOsoMA ? HEBRAicuM. Ricliardsou. 



Ch. Spkc. Gl. nigro varium, facie convexd ; radio quarto 

 articulato pinrKe dorsi elongate. 



Radii:— Br. 7; D. 8|11 ; A. 3|9; C. 17^; P. 16; V. \\b. 



Plate XVII., one-third the natural size. 



The ichtbyological part of Siebold's Fauna Japonica, 

 written by Messrs. C. J. Temminck and H. Schlegel 

 (p. 62, pi. 27), contains an engraving, with a short notice, 

 of a fish of which they had seen no specimen, and knew 

 only from a drawing and description forwarded to them by 

 Mr. Burger. They stale that the fish is taken occasionally 

 in the bays of the south-west coast of Japan, and is much 

 esteemed for its excellent flavour as an article of food. It 

 attains a good size, the individual drawn by Mr. Burger 

 being two feet in length. Thej' name it Glaucosoma from 

 the general tint of the body, and give the numbers of its 

 rays as follows :— Br. 7 ; D. gjll ; A. 3)9 ; C. 18 ; P. 18 ; 

 V. 1|5. The western coast of Australia is frequented by 

 a fish having preciselj' the same form of the gill-cover, 

 the same unusual distribution of the scales on the snout, 

 preorbitar, maxillaries and lower jaw, and a similar spinous 

 dorsal, remarkable for its lowness and for the gradual in- 

 crease in the length of its spines from the first to the last, 

 which is much overtopped by the succeeding soft rays.* 

 In the character of the anal spines, the shape and size of 

 the scales of the body, and in general aspect, the resem- 

 blance between the Japanese and Australian species holds 

 good, and we have therefore referred the latter also to the 

 genus Glaucosoma, though a few particulars of structure 

 remain to be determined by future observation before this 



* With the exception of Latilus, and a few other genera, most of the 

 Percidm and Scitmid(E with single dorsals have the spinous pavt of that 

 fin more or less arched by a gradual shortening of the posterior ones 

 either to the last one or to the penultimate one, thus making an approach 

 to a notched dorsal. Indeed the division of the Percida into those 

 having double or deeply notched dorsals, and those having single ones, 

 would be artificial, were it fully carried out, which it is not in the His- 

 taire des Poissnns, greater regard being generally had in Cuvier's ar- 

 rangements to the assemblage of generic characters, than to any isolated 

 feature in a fish. Thus we have some DiagrammtE with a dorsal more 

 deeply notched, than in Sciwnoids which are ranked with those having 

 double dorsals, and like instances mav be readily adduced from the 

 Percid^r. 



allocation can be final. The .\ustralian fish has two flat 

 bony obtuse points in the ojierculum, separated by a deep 

 notch, and so buried among the scales that they are not 

 readily seen. No such points are shown in Mr. Biirger's 

 figure of Glaucoso7na, nor indeed are they distinguished 

 from scales in our plate. A still greater reason for doubt 

 is the silence of Mr. Burger on the subject of teeth on 

 the vomer and palate. The Australian fish has even a 

 more decidedly Scisnoid aspect than the Japanese one, 

 and it may be that Messrs. Temminck and Schlegel 

 ranked Glaucosoma in that family more from general cha- 

 racter than from precise information of the palate being 

 toothless, as they say nothing about it in the text. Should 

 it eventually prove that the one fish has the roof of the 

 mouth smooth, while the other has it toothed, it will either 

 show that this character must in some cases be dispensed 

 with, if we wish to make families natural assemblages of 

 species, or we must admit that it is the only character by 

 which some Percidce can be distinguished from ScicBuida, 

 and of this it is not difficult to find examples among the 

 Mesopriones, Diagramma: and their allies. Another point 

 on which we lack information is the nature of the pharyn- 

 geal teeth of the Australian fish. The specimens are 

 merely sections, in which the parts about the throat have 

 been "cut away. Mr. Biirger describes the pharyngeal 

 teeth of his fish as being en pave. This gentleman's 

 drawing shows scales between the rays of the anal fin, but 

 none on the dorsal, which is most probably an omission. 

 Both fins of the Australian fish are scaly at the base, and 

 it is rare that a fish has the anal scaly, and the dorsal 

 smooth. 



No specific name has been assigned to the Japanese 

 fish, but the existence of a second species renders it neces- 

 sary to supply one, for the convenience of reference, and 

 we propose to do so, by naming it, in honour of its dis- 

 coverer, Glaucosoma biirgeri. The appellation of the 

 Australian species, Glaucosoma hebraicum, was suggested 

 by its colonial designation of Jew-fish. In some English 

 possessions fish of small estimation are termed Jew-fish ; but 

 we do not know that this is the origin of its trivial name 

 in Western Australia, as we have not received any account 

 of the qualities of the fish, whose size gives it importance, 

 our specimen, from Houtman's Abrolhos, exceeding two 

 feet and a half in length. 



According to Cuvier's system of arrangement, Glauco- 

 soma hebraicum being a percoid fish with five articulated 

 ventral rays, seven branchostegous rays, a single dorsal, 

 villiform teeth without canines, and a serrated preopercii- 

 lum, would enter the genus Centropristes, but its habit is 

 totally distinct from that of the typical species, nor does it 

 correspond with any of the other genera, viz. Grijstes, 

 Polyprion,Pentaceros, Acerina and Rliypticus placedin the 

 same grouj) with Centropristes in the Histoire des Poissons.* 



* In this work the genus Centropristes presents an incongruous assem- 

 blage of species. The Rev. Leonard Jenyns has properly removed 

 C. yeorgianus and the species resembling it to a separate genus, which 

 he has named Arripis. These species are much like a J/u</t7 with a 

 single dorsal, a likeness which Solander seized when he named one of 

 them Mulloides. The Centropristes scorpenmdes, another Australian fish, 

 is also vei-y unlike the American types of the genus. It has the under 

 limb of the preopercuhnn anned with three strong acute spines, curved 



E 2 



