SII'DIKS IN' AI'STRAMAN FlSllKS McCIM.oril. ft.'i 



Described from a female example 290 mm. lon^ from Port Macquaric, 

 New South Wales. The accompanying figure is prepared from the same 

 specimen, but the colour-marking is copied from another in which the 

 dark bands chance to have been preserved. 



Variation. — The dark bands referred to rarely show in preserved 

 examples, and are variable in both number and intensity in fresli 

 specimens. They are most apparent in light coloured examples, and 

 appear to be intensified under stress of excitement as when the fish is 

 hooked; if the fish be swimming quietly in a pool they are scarcely 

 visible, and the whole body is darker than when it is first taken from the 

 water. Incipient albinos have been forwarded to the Australian Museum 

 which are almost uniforml}' canary yellow in colour, while a true albino 

 which was captured near Sydney is white with the back and sides closely 

 speckled with silver-grey dots. In eleven specimens from various 

 localities, the dorsal spines and rays vary in number from xiv-xvi and 

 11-13 respectively; one abnormal specimen had five anal spines, of which 

 the thii'd and fourth arose from the same base though they were not 

 anited. 



Notes on the occurrence and habits of this species have been published 

 by Steads. 



Synonymy. — Kluuzinger (1872), Castelnau (1872), and McCoy (1883), 

 each suggested the specific identity of Girella iricHspidata and G. sitnplex. 

 Stead (1908) recorded that the form commonly recognised as G. f^implex, 

 in which the outer teeth have truncate cutting-edges, is merely the 

 female form of G.tricuspidata. which has distinctly' trilobate teeth; but he 

 offered no proof of his statement. I am indebted to Mr. F. McNeill for 

 an interesting series of jaws, milts, and rows, taken from fifty-five 

 specimens which were secured by himself at or near Coogee, near Sydney, 

 at various dates in April and May, 1919. The teeth of the outer series 

 in both jaws are distinctly trilobate in all (fifteen) the males ; two 

 specimens, however, have a few truncate teeth near the symphyses of the 

 jaws, some of which are functional while the others are small and partly 

 embedded in the gum. In thirty-nine of the females, these teeth are 

 almost all truncate ; one or more of the lateral teeth are sometimes 

 distinctly trilobed, and one example has a well developed trilobed tooth 

 among the truncate ones at the S3'mphysis. One pair of jaws associated 

 with large ovaries has almost all the teeth ti'ilobate, but a few median 

 and lateral teeth are truncate. The teeth of the females have truncate 

 edges in their earliest stages, as is proved by an examination of some 

 extracted fi'om the gum at the base of and anterior to the functional 

 series; on the other hand, the teeth of the males are distinctly trilobed 

 in tlieir early stages. The minute teeth of the inner band in each jaw 

 are more or less trilobed in both sexes, though more markedly so in 

 males than in females. 



Two specimens caught on a line in succession at Maroubra, 29th June, 

 1919, which offered no differences other than in dentition, proved to be 



fi St^ad— Fish. Austr.. 1906, p. 91, un.l FA. Fish. X.S.Walos, 1908, p. 49. 



