2 34 THE GREAT BARRIER REEF. 



Popular Name. Tkchnicai. Name. 



14 Spotted or Leopard-fish Holothuria argus 



15 Large Lolly-fish 



16 Small Lolly-fish 



17 Black Cotton-fish 



18 Snake-like, or Yellow-plumed Beche-de-mer . 



19 Yellow Cotton-fish 



20 Corrueated Beche-de-mer 



vngabunda 

 sanguinolenta , n.sp. 

 atra 

 coluber 

 vitiensis 

 botellus 



I'he above list comprises four species that Professor Bell has pronounced to be new to 

 science. These include two of the most valuable commercial varieties — i.e., the so-called Black-fish 

 and the ordinary Teat-fish — here associated with the titles of Adiiiopyga polymorpha and 

 Holothuria mamuiifcra ; these names (in anticipation of their proving to be new species) were 

 provisionally conferred on them in a brief diagnosis of the external characters of some half-a- 

 dozen of the leading commercial varieties included in the author's Report on the Barrier Reef 

 Beche-de-mer fisheries, compiled for, and published by, the Queensland Government in the 

 year 1890. 



Pending the production of a systematic catalogue of the Queensland Beche-de-mer, a 

 brief synopsis of the living, external, features of the species included in the foregoing list 

 is herewith submitted. Being drawn up from notes, sketches made, and photographs of 

 living specimens taken by the author at the various Barrier fishing stations, it may prove 

 of practical use in the comparison and determination of species obtained from other Beche-de- 

 mer-producing districts of the Australian coast-line. 



descriptive synopsis of commercial species of queensland 



b£:che-de-mer. 



Genus Stichopus. 



Spicules absent or represented by simple granules ; the integument usually associated with 

 conspicuously protruding, simple, or branched, papillae. 



No I. Red Prickly-fish or Prickly-red, Stichopus variegatus (Plate XXXV.b). — Body in ex- 

 tension elongate subcylindrical, somewhat depressed, the entire dorsal and lateral surfaces 

 ornamented with large aculeate conical papillae of various patterns ; the papillae at the two 

 extremities for the most part simple, those of the sides usually bidentate or tridentate, and those 

 throughout the central dorsal region presenting an irregular stellate outline ; locomotive acetabula 

 large, forming a single continuous series throughout the ventral surface ; slender tactile suckers 

 interspersed among and upon the stellate papillae of the dorsal region ; ground colour, tawny- 

 yellow ; the papilla; and ventral acetabula more usually light-red ; short irregular transverse lines 



