292 THE GREAT BARRIER REEF. 



the sand whiting, S. ciliata, C. & Val, ; and the Sydney whiting, 5. maculata, O. & G., frequent 

 Moreton Bay, and extend southward to New South Wales ; while a fourth species, S. gracilis, 

 Mel., is obtained in Torres Strait, and is distributed throughout the northern Australian coast- 

 Ime. These " whitings " — not to be confounded with the European fish bearing the same name, 

 which are members of the cod family or Gadids — deservedly occupy a front rank among the 

 Australian food fishes, their flesh being very white, exceedingly delicate, and easily digestible. 

 The largest specimens rarely exceed a length of eighteen inches, with an accompanying weight 

 of from a pound and a-half to two pounds. 



The family of the Cottidae, which includes the flatheads and gurnards, yields here, as in the 

 adjacent colonies, a substantial contribution to the general fish supply. The most abundant and 

 familiar type is the common flathead, Platyccplialits fiiscus, C. & Val., identical with the ordinary 

 variety of the Sydney market, but better known in Melbourne as the rock flathead. In addition 

 to this, some half-a-dozen other species have been obtained on the Queensland coast. One of 

 the commonest northern iovms, Platyccphahts Staigeri, is represented by Plate XLIII., Fig. 6. This 

 genus, however, is nowhere in Queensland waters represented so abundantly as it is in the southern 

 coast-line of Australia, and where, more especially on the Tasmanian and Victorian coast, toujours 

 flathead and nothing but flathead, becomes a severe tax on the patience of the amateur line-fisherman. 

 The typical gurnards, including the genera Trigla and Lepidotrigla, are conspicuous for their 

 abnormally developed wing-shaped pectoral fins and for the leg-like form and function of the three 

 anterior pectoral rays, with the aid of which these fish literally perambulate the sea bottom. 

 Two species, representing both of the above-named genera, have been obtained from Queensland 

 waters ; they are the so-called flying gurnard, Trigla poly ommata, Rich., and the butterfly gurnard, 

 Lepidotrigla Vergeri, Temp. The gurnards in the European seas occupy an important position 

 from a commercial standpoint, and are among the leading fish that are most abundantly taken 

 with the trawl net. The few experiments with the trawl that have so far been made in the 

 neighbourhood of Moreton Bay, while demonstrating the existence of the above-named fish in some 

 abundance, have failed hitherto to reveal their presence in quantities, or of size sufficient for 

 commercial utility. Further systematic investigations of a like nature, and in different directions, 

 may not improbably result in the discovery of localities in which these fish may be obtained of 

 larger size and in remunerative numbers. 



Under the family title of the Gobiidae, have to be included some two or three species of the 

 genus Eleotris, which, while not of sufficient importance to rank among the commercial species, 

 may be utilised as food. Over twenty species are indigenous to Queensland, the majority being 

 denizens of fresh water; the greater portion of them are of small and insignificant size, but some 

 few, such as Eleotris aporos, Blk., and E. cresceiis, De V., may attain a foot or more in length, with 

 a weight of over one pound. Loter is the popular title by which these fish are most generally 

 known. They are chiefly allied to the small marine fish known as gobies, genus Gobius, and which 



