16 Proceedings of the Royal Society of VictoHa. 



As it stands, the list includes 238 species. There can be 

 no doubt but that many additions will be made, especially 

 of smaller species, and of species living in deeper waters, 

 which require the use of the trawl for their capture. On the 

 other hand, it seems highly probable that several forms ranked 

 as species are really but varieties. This is notably the case in 

 the genera Monacanthus, Labrichthys and possibly Galaxias. 

 Our Fish Fauna has been very tardily worked out, and 

 much remains to be done even now. A few of our fish are 

 world-wide in their- distribution, and the species thus secured 

 the great Linnaeus as their sponsor. The first strictly 

 Australian species described are, I believe, to be found in the 

 pages of " White's Journal to New South Wales," published in 

 1790. Amongst these, a very few Victorian forms are figured, 

 in company with the Great Brown Kingfisher, and other 

 "species non-descripti" as White terms them. As expedi- 

 tions from Europe became more frequent, Australian fish 

 appear in the systematic works, first of Bloch and of 

 Lacepede, and later on of Cuvier and Valenciennes. The 

 voyages of the Freycinet Expedition, of the Astrolabe, Beagle, 

 Erebus and Terror, added a large number of Australian 

 species in the Zoological Appendices to their Narratives. To 

 Drs. Quoy and Gaimard, to Jenyns, and to Sir John Richard- 

 son, we owe thus a number of descriptions. To the latter 

 too, were forwarded several consignments of Tasmanian fish, 

 and of coui'se many of these are common to Victoria and 

 Tasmania ; but it was not until 1 872 that a serious study 

 was made of Victorian forms proper. In that year Count 

 F. de Castelnau, well-known for his previous researches on 

 the fish of South America and of the Cape of Good Hope, 

 published in the "Proceedings of the Zoological Society of 

 Victoria," descriptions of about 150 species, which he had 

 obtained, mostly from the Melbourne Fish Market. In the 

 succeeding year, he added notes on more species. The 

 Count's labours have made the work of those who follow 

 him mainly of a supplementary nature Amongst others 

 who have worked during the last twenty years at our fishes, 

 have been Drs. Gunther, Steindachner, KlUiizinger, and 

 especially tlie Hon. Sir William Macleay, of Sj^dney, who 

 has done so much for Australian Ichthyology in many 

 ways, and most of all by the publication of his excellent 

 " Descriptive Catalogue of Australian Fish." Finally, 

 Professor M'Coy has given detailed descriptions and figures, 

 usually in colours, of over 50 species of our Victorian fish. 



