CHAPTER VIII. 



FOOD UND FMCY FISHES. 



UEENSLAND possesses a fish fauna remarkable both for the abundance 

 of its species and for the structural variety of its constituents. All told, 

 the number of combined marine and fresh-water species, authentically 

 recorded up to date, falls but little short of 900. In other words, 

 it embraces two-thirds of the entire known marine and fresh-water 

 fish fauna of the Australian continent. Out of the foregoing total 

 number, over 300 species may be classified as of more or less value 

 for human food, leaving a balance of between 500 and 600 to which, 

 for the most part, a scientific interest, only, can so far be attributed. The numbers given 

 will very probably in both instances be materially augmented by extended investigation, as the 

 marine and fluviatile waters of Queensland are, as yet, by no means exhaustively explored. 



The classified list attached as an appendix to this volume will suffice to furnish the 

 reader with an approximate idea of the extent and variety of the Queensland fish fauna, so 

 far as it relates to the prominent edible species. The task of its exhaustive description would 

 necessarily involve the compilation of a volume as large as, or larger than, the present one ; and it 

 is, consequently, only possible in the present chapter to give a general sketch of its leading 

 features, concentrating more special attention on those forms that are most noteworthy, either 

 for their economic utility, or their scientific, structural, or ornate features. The term Barrier 

 district, if here interpreted somewhat liberally, or in such manner as to include the rivers 

 that debouch upon its precincts, will afford the opportunity of including in this sketch a brief 

 notice of certain remarkable species that either possess few, or no known existing, allies in 

 other parts of the world. 



Limiting attention more particularly, in the first instance, to the species that are of economic 

 value, it may be generally stated that the fish fauna of Queensland, compared with that of the 

 more southern Australian colonies, including New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania, together 

 with New Zealand, presents many distinctive features. The fish of its northern districts more 

 especially are characteristic of what is known to zoologists as the Indo-Pacific, or Oriental region. 

 Among other distinctions, it may be observed that the much-esteemed group of the trumpeters 

 (genus Laths), which forms so important a factor in the fish markets of Tasmania, Victoria, and 



