FOOD AND FANCY FISHES. 303 



resembles an attenuated herring, but it is furnished with sharp prehensile teeth. As its name 

 implies, it glitters like a bar of silver when taken from the water ; it presents every appearance 

 of being a first-class table fish, but, while of good flavour, it is unfortunately so full of small bones 

 as to be almost useless. In common with the bony-bream, Chatoessus, previously referred to, 

 it could probably be turned to good account if cut into suitable lengths and preserved in tins, 

 after the manner of sardines, under such conditions that the bones would be dissolved. The fish 

 attains to a length of three feet, and occurs abundantly in tropical waters, from the African 

 coast-line to the China seas. In the estuary of the Norman River the dorab is highly prized 

 as a bait for the capture of the giant perch, Latcs calcarifer. 



The eel family, Muraenidae, is represented in Queensland by the cosmopolitan fresh- 

 water species A)igiiilla aiistralis, Rich., which is more or less esteemed for food, and by 

 some three or four marine members of the same genus. There are also two conger eels. 

 Conger niarginatiis, Val. a northern form, and C lahiatits, Cast., which is identical with the 

 common conger of the Sydney market. The Muraenae, eel-Iike fish of a compressed shape, 

 with the gape of the mouth extending a long way behind the eyes, are represented in 

 Queensland waters by about twelve species, the majority of which belong to the tropical 

 zone and frequent the coral-reefs. Some of these Murasna;, or Reef-eels, as they are popularly 

 called, attain to a length of six or eight feet ; and, being of aggressive habits and armed with 

 formidable teeth, they command wholesome respect from the fishermen. In the days of ancient 

 Rome it was not an uncommon practice to throw prisoners and malefactors into ponds to be 

 devoured by Muraenae, which were kept expressly for this purpose. Voyagers to and from 

 Australia, via Naples, have unexampled opportunities of studying the habits of these fish in the 

 tanks of Dr. Dohrn's Zoological Station Aquarium, where a number are on view, domiciled, 

 in many instances, in ancient Roman amphorae. A species of Reef-eel, Mtircena tessellata, Rich., 

 that is tolerably abundant throughout the Great Barrier coral-reefs, is very distinctly marked, 

 its entire body, including the head and fins, being dappled with rounded or more or less 

 polygonal black spots on a white or cream-coloured ground ; these spots are so closely 

 approximated, that the colours might be almost more correctly described as black with white 

 reticulations. In a preserved skin of this species, in the author's possession, about four feet 

 long, the black polygonal areas enclosed by the white reticulations are rarely over an inch 

 in diameter, and are most usually much smaller. The pugnacity of this mottled Reef-eel is 

 evinced by the smallest examples, a foot or so only in length, that are commonly found on 

 turning over rocks and coral boulders on the reefs, for they strike viciously at, and speedily 

 draw blood from, the hand that attempts to capture them. 



An allied and very ferocious species of Reef-eel, that attains to a length of as much as 

 twenty feet, and of which the pearl-shell and Bech-de-mer fishers are more in dread than 

 of sharks, has been reported to the author, as frequenting the reefs in the vicinity of the 



