282 THE GREAT BARRIER REEF. 



this fish, which is also known locally as the Queensland trumpeter, with reference to the grunting 

 noise it makes on being taken from the water, is delineated in Plate XLIV., Fig. i. 



Among the generic groups of the perch family inhabiting Australian waters, most important 

 trom a commercial point of view, is that of Oligorus. It includes the so-called Murray cod, O. 

 Macquariensis, C. & Val., which grows to a weight of from 80 to 100 lbs. or more, and furnishes 

 the materials for an extensive trade, in connection more especially with the Melbourne market. 

 This valuable species is distributed through all the colonies watered by the Murray River 

 and its connecting streams, Queensland receiving its most considerable share from the Darl- 

 ing River and its tributaries, in the neighbourhood of Goondiwindi. It has recently been 

 shown also to inhabit the Mary River and other streams, debouching on the eastern coast- 

 line. Two huge representatives of the same genus, viz., Oligorus goliath, De V., and O. terrcv- 

 regince, Ram., popularly known by the name of gropers, inhabit salt water and are not unfrequently 

 taken with hook and line on the " schnapper " grounds in Moreton Bay ; they are more abundant, 

 however, among the coral-reefs, and in the river estuaries, further north. The two last-named 

 species are stated to grow to a weight of four or five cwt. ; while examples have been taken in the 

 Brisbane River more than six feet long and weighing over i5olb. 



An illustration of the better-known Barrier Reef form, the Queensland groper, Oligorus tcrroe- 

 reginm, is given in Plate XLIII., Fig. 5. Evidence was obtained by the author that this species of 

 groper enters the Norman River from the Gulf of Carpentaria, possibly for spawning purposes, regu- 

 larly in the month of May ; and at that time the fishermen have consequently to abandon stake-net 

 fishing, or run the risk of having their nets destroyed by these weighty fish. Some idea respecting 

 the customary food of gropers may be formed from the circumstance that the stomach of an example 

 caught in the Pioneer River, near Macka}', was found to contain several large crabs, each of which 

 weighed upwards of four pounds. A third known marine species of Oligorus, O. gigas, Owen, 

 represents one of the most important food fishes of New Zealand, and is locally known to the 

 Maories by the name of the hapiku. A large fish closely related to Oligorus, which has been recently 

 discovered in Queensland waters, is Homalogrystes luctuosus, De V. It is locally known by the title 

 of the purple groper. A second species of the same genus, H. Gilntheri, A. & Mel., has been recorded 

 from Torres Strait. The many varieties of so-called Murray perch and Murray bream — genera 

 Ctenolates, Murrayia, Riverina, and Therapon — which are forwarded in large quantities from the 

 central districts of the Murray River system to the Melbourne market, in company with the Murray 

 cod, are conterminous in distribution with that species, and have been recorded from the Darling 

 River and other Queensland tributaries. The genus Therapon, which includes T. Ricliardsoni, Cast., 

 the silver perch of the Murray River, is represented by as many as twenty Queensland species, all 

 more or less esteemed for food, which are variously distributed among the rivers debouching upon 

 the eastern and northern coast-lines. Several allied species of perch referable to the genus Dules 

 also inhabit the rivers of the eastern watershed, one species, D. Haswelli, McL, being taken in the 

 Brisbane River. 



