FOOD AND FANCY FISHES. 291 



the abnormal elongation of the dorsal and anal fins, which have won for it, at Cairns, the title 

 of the butterfly fish ; elsewhere it is known as the banded dorey. 



The family of the true mackerels, or Scombridae, is admitted by all ichthyologists 

 to represent one of the four families of fishes most useful to man, the remaining three being 

 that of the herrings, Clupeidae, the true cods, Gadidae, and the salmon family, Salmonidae. 

 The high importance pertaining to this group in European and American waters does not, 

 however, extend to the Australian seas. At the same time, a species that is scarcely to be 

 distinguished from the Mediterranean mackerel. Scomber piiciiinafophonis, De la Roche, but 

 which has been named S. antardiciis, Cast., is occasionally taken in Queensland waters, and 

 has been observed making its way northwards in vast shoals, along the New South Wales 

 coast-line. These mackerel are further said to visit Sydney harbour three or four times 

 in the course of the year, but generally when young and of small size. It is not improbable, 

 from the observed direction of their migrations, that they attain to their mature condition off 

 the Queensland coast, in which event the species might yield material for an important 

 fishing industry. Two other members of the mackerel family that occur abundantly in 

 Queensland waters are a species of bonito, T/ijiiiins McCovi, Cast., and a large so-called 

 horse-mackerel, Cvbiimi Commersoni, Lac, which is better known in the northern districts 

 by the title of the king fish. This last-named form, delineated in Plate XLVI., Fig. i, represents 

 one of the species which, in common with the yellow-tail and the bonito, may be obtained by 

 trolling a baited line astern from a sailing boat or steamer, if not making more than six or 

 seven knots. A fish of this variety, weighing about 30 lb., if boiled like salmon, is one of 

 the most delicious eating of Australian fishes. This, and other typical representatives of the 

 mackerel family, are easily recognised by their sharply-pointed conical bodies, adapted lor 

 rapid movement through the water, and by the presence of a number of minute finlets, which 

 occupy the position of the ordinary dorsal and anal fins of other species. 



A somewhat abnormal member of the mackerel tribe, modified in the direction of 

 the sucking fish, Echeneis, is known by the technical title of Elacate nigcr. An example 

 of this species, about two feet long, was supplied, among other food varieties, from the 

 Claremont lightship, for the table of the Chinese steamer Tsiiiaii, during the author's 

 passage up the Queensland coast in the year 188S, and proved most excellent eating. 

 It differs from the typical mackerels in the absence of finlets, in the very flattened 

 form of the head and body, and in the asymmetry of the tail ; in both last-named respects 

 it somewhat resembles the sea-catfishes of the genus Arius. A second specimen of this 

 fish has been more recently forwarded to the author from Bowen, Port Denison, by Mr. 

 A. W. Hodgkinson. 



" Whitings," of the family Trachinidae and genus Sillago, furnish an important contingent to the 



Queensland fish supply. Three species, including the trumpeter whiting, S. hasscnsis, C. & Val. ; 



002 



