64 RECORDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MTTSEUM. 



DESCRIPTION OP a NEW PELAGIC FISH FROM 

 NEW ZEALAND. 



By J. Douglas Ogilby. 



Some months ago the Australian Museum received, through 

 the kindness of the Fresh Food and Ice Company, Sydney, a fine 

 specimen of an unknown pelagic fish from New Zealand, being 

 one of a consignment forwarded to the Company for sale in 

 Sydney, the bulk of which consisted of Trout, Rock Cod (Percis 

 eoliasj, and Flounders ( lihombosolea moiiopusj. This exainple, 

 having been imported for edible purposes, had of course been 

 thoroughly cleaned before being placed in the ice chamber, and I 

 am therefore, unable to give the number of pyloric appendages. 



The occurrence of this genus in Australasian waters, is quite 

 as interesting as the discovery of Tetragonurus* some years ago at 

 Lord Howe Island, and bears a close analogy to it, both genera 

 being more or less distinctly Mediterranean types. 



Centrolophus maoricus, sp. nov. 



B. vii. D. 38. A. 25. Y. 1/5. P. 21. 0. 19. 



The length of the head is equal to that of the caudal fin, and 

 five and a half in the total length ; the greatest height of the 

 body is beneath the longest dorsal rays, and is contained five times 

 in the same. The eye is large, and is surrounded by a prominent 

 naked lid ; it is situated near the upper profile of the head, and 

 its diameter is four and one-tenth in the length of the head, and 

 one and one-seventh in that of the snout, which is obtuse and 

 abruptly truncated, and projects slightly beyond the lower jaw ; 

 the interorbital space is convex and its width is equal to the 

 length of the snout. The nostrils are situated far forward, 

 immediately behind the angle of the snout ; the anterior is oval 

 and vertical, the posterior much larger and subarcuate. The 

 upper profile of the head is slightly concave. The jaws are 

 equal, and the cleft of the mouth is of moderate width, the 

 maxilla reaching to beneath the anterior fourth of the orbit. 

 The vertical limb of the preopercle is straight and slightly inclined 

 forward, its angle and lower limb finely denticulated ; the margins 

 of the sub- and inter-opercles rather more strongly so. A single 

 series of cardiform teeth in the jaws, so irre;^ularly placed as to 

 form in many cases an apparently double series. The dorsal fin 



* Macleay, Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. Wales, x. p. 718, and op. cit. (2) i. 

 p. 511 ; Eamsay & Ogilby, op. cit. (2) iii. p. 9. 



