34 



HisTioPTERUS RECURViRosTKis. Richardson. 

 Plate XXIL, figs. 5, 6. 



Of this fish I have received merely a mutilated head 

 from Dr. W. P. Jones, Surgeon in the Royal Navy, to 

 whom it was presented by Mr. Moriarty, of Hobart Town. 

 The subopercula, interopercula, and most of the opercula 

 have been broken away, but the parts which remain agree 

 so perfectly with the corresponding parts of Histiopterus 

 typus, figured in the forty-fifth plate of the Faima Japo- 

 nica, that I have no hesitation in assigning it to that genus. 

 It is a very distinct species from typus, having a much 

 more elongated and concave muzzle. In typus, the pro- 

 file ascends fi-om the upper lip to the gibbous orbital plate 

 of the frontal bone, at an angle of 45°, and the propor- 

 tionally smaller eye is directly over the lower limb of the 

 preoperculum, the posterior limb of that bone being ver- 

 tical, whereas in recurvirostris it slopes greatly forwards 

 in descending from the temple. The relative position of 

 the nostrils is the same in both, as are also the bony plates 

 and intermediate cuticular, or scaly spaces, but in typus 

 the granulations of the plates run in coarse, radiating, 

 concentric, or parallel ridges, while in recurvirostris, the 

 rough points preserve no determinate order, except on the 

 preoperculum, where they are obscurely radiate, and on 

 the operculum, where their course appears to be in parallel 

 lines, but the patterns are very different from those of 

 typus. The shagginess of the tip of the chin of the 

 latter is not perceptible in recurvirostris. The teeth of 

 our species are coarsely setaceous, in broad, densely- 

 crowded bands, and are easily broken, when each is seen 

 to be traversed by a fine central canal. I received no other 

 information respecting the form of the species, except that 

 it was a very extraordinary fish. 



Hab. Coast of Van Diemen's Land ; very rare. The 

 specimen was caught in a net in one of the inlets of Storm 

 Bay, by some fishermen, and carried by them to Mr. Mo- 

 riarty, as a fish which they had never seen before. 



Alepisaurus. Lowe. 

 Plate XXIL, figs. 1, 2, 3, 4. 



The Rev. Mr. Lowe, of Madeira, has described and 

 figured a Scomberoid fish, taken on the coasts of that 

 island, under the name of Alepisaurus fero.v. I have had 

 an opportunity of examining the head of one of his spe- 

 cimens, preserved in the museum of the Philosophical 

 Institution of Cambridge, and have been thereby enabled 

 to assign to the same genus a fragment of a skull, obtained 

 by Dr. Hooker from Mr. Gunn, of Van Diemen's Land, 

 and said to belong to a fish which was taken on the coasts 

 of that colony. It is a distinct species from fero.v, from 

 which it differs in the more backward position of the eye, 

 the gibbosity of the profile before the orbit, and the gene- 

 rally greater height of the upper jaw. 



The bones of the skull are thin, transparent and papery, 

 as is the case in general among the Scornberida. The 

 frontal bone looks almost membranaceous from its delicacy 

 and transparency, but it is strengthened by acute ribs, 

 which radiate from a point over the middle of the orbit, 



and near to its edge. The shortest rays proceed directly to 

 the edge of the orbit, the longest run forwards towards the 

 nostrils, while those of medium length go inwards to the 

 mesial line, and backwards to the occiput. The two frontals 

 meet in a straight mesial line on the top of the head, and the 

 space between the orbits is fiattish, with a slight declination 

 of the edge of the orbit. The other bones of the head are 

 similarly formed of ribs running through their transparent 

 plates. Slender intermaxillaries form the whole upper 

 border of the mouth, and are armed from end to end with 

 small subulate teeth, which are slightly unequal in height, 

 and do not lie exactly in one line. The palate bones 

 sustain long, thin, lancet-shaped teeth, slightly curved 

 backwards, one pair on each bone standing well forwards 

 near the nostrils, and another pair farther backwards, but 

 before the eye. There is a toothless space between these 

 pairs, and also before the first pair, there being no teeth on 

 the chevron of the vomer. Behind the second pair there 

 are ten shorter lanceolate teeth on each palate bone, in- 

 creasing a little in size towards the corner of the mouth. 

 The lower jaw is armed with a pair of long lanceolate 

 teeth, fitting to the toothless space between the pairs of 

 the upper jaw, and behind, by twelve short ones. Ante- 

 riorly this jaw is furnislied with subulate teeth, consi- 

 derably larger and more widely set than those of the inter- 

 maxillaries. A pair of still taller subulate teeth stands 

 close to the symphysis. The long lanceolate teeth have 

 slightly convex lateral surfaces, with a thin border, appa- 

 rently of more compact bone, which shows a feeble crena- 

 ture on the edge, when examined through a lens. The 

 surface of the tooth, except the extreme edge, seems to be 

 reticulated. All these teeth are at first recumbent along 

 the jaw, and assume the erect position as the older teeth 

 are broken, and require to be replaced. In figure 2, the two 

 anterior subulate teeth are represented in this position, as 

 they actually existed in the specimen, while in figure 1 

 they are shown erect, because the adjoining ones were 

 broken. Several lanceolate teeth, both long and short, 

 were also laid along the jaw when the specimen was first 

 examined. The preoperculum is vertical, with a slight 

 curve, and without any horizontal limb. Its fore edge is 

 a strong, ribbed ridge, its disk thin, papery, and radiated, 

 as in the figure. The rest of the opercular bones were 

 broken off. The gill-membrane lies between the limbs of 

 the lower jaw, and contains seven rays. 

 Hab, Coast of Van Diemen's Land. 



Raia LEMPRIERI. Richardson. 



Plate XXIII., half the natural size. 



This ray has received its specific name in compliment 

 to Deputy Assistant Commissary-General F. J. Lempriere, 

 to whose exertions the Ichthyology of Van Diemen's Land 

 is much indebted. It is nearly allied to the Raia nasuta, 

 of which a figure by Parkinson exists in the collection 

 of drawings formed by Sir Joseph Banks, on Cook's first 

 voyage, and now in the British Museum. The most strik- 

 ing difference between them is in the shorter snout of 

 lemprieri, forming merely the apex of the rhomboidal 

 anterior half of the disk, and not tapering to a point, as in 

 nasuta, whose disk is bounded anteriorly by concave lines. 



