Waite. — Notes on Ntw Zeahnid Fishes. 223 



are free, the two last being close together, and connected with membrane. 

 The anal fin is similar to the second dorsal, but is shorter, having a more 

 posterior insertion. The pectoral is placed wholly in the lower half of the 

 body, and extends to a point midway between the edge of the opercle and 

 the origin of the anal fin ; it is falcate and pointed, the fifth ray being the 

 longest ; its length is 1-24 in the head. The ventral arises below the edge 

 ■of the opercle, in advance of the pectoral ; the spine may readily be over- 

 looked, being short and closely adpressed to the first ray, and incapable of 

 being separated therefrom ; all the rays have a broad, flat, bony front edge, 

 which fold together like the rays of a fan ; the first is two and a half times 

 in the length of the head, and the following are successively longer, the fifth 

 extending much farther than the first when the fin is folded ; the inner 

 rays of each fin are broadly united. The caudal is crescentic and deeply 

 cleft, the lower lobe being the longer ; the peduncle, behind the last finlets, 

 is short, not more than its height, which equ.als a fifth more than the eye- 

 diameter. There are two low ridges on each side of the tail, and a small 

 pit above and below at the base of the caudal rays. 



Scales. — The head is naked, with the exception of about 4 rows of scales 

 on the cheeks. The scales commence behind the occiput, and clothe the 

 whole of the body excepting a naked callous area in which lies the pectoral 

 fin. The scales are large and cycloidal, as figured by Giinther, while the 

 lateral line is traceable only for a short distance under the middle of the 

 first dorsal fin. 



Colours. — The head is steel-blue ; the body nearly black above and 

 silvery beneath ; the dorsal fin is hyaline, with brown spines, while the 

 pectoral is silvery ; the tail is black, and the eye metallic green and silver. 



Length, 1,637 mm., or, exclusive of caudal fin, 1,473 mm. 



Long after the foregoing had been passed in for publication I received 

 a second example from Mr. Tom Bragg, of Half-moon Bay, Stewart Island. 

 Under the date 12th February, 1913, Mr. Bragg writes, ' " The fish I sent 

 you was got on the west coast. I was around there on a fishing cruise, 

 and was anchored in Deas Cove, Thompson Sound, when this fish came 

 into the cove, swimming at a tremendous speed round and round on the 

 top of the water, as if something was chasing it ; then all at once it changed 

 its course and swam straight in towards the shore. It was going at a great 

 rate when it struck a rock with its nose, and it was killed outright, for when 

 I picked it up it was quite dead." This specimen is somewhat smaller than 

 the Kaikoura example, being 1,395 mm. in length. It is otherwise so en- 

 tirely similar, the proportional measurements being identical, that the figures 

 for one Av^ill stand equally for the other. 



15. Mola mola Linnaeus. 

 Plate IX. 



So many illustrations of the sunfish have been published that to issue 

 yet another may seem to be quite unnecessary. I venture to think, how- 

 ever, that the accompanying reproduction from an actual photograph will 

 be distinctly interesting. 



This picture shows an absolutely lateral view, the fish being photo- 

 graphed from above, so that lying on the ground there is no distortion as 

 in many illustrations of sunfishes. 



The fish was obtained at New Brighton, a marine suburb of Christchurch, 

 on the 1st November, 1912. It had been washed up on to the beach, and 



