FOOD AND FANCY FISHES. 309 



ordinary colour of the species is "rifle-green with the prolonged ventral ray scarlet," a rose- 

 coloured variety with two horizontal black marks — here regarded as probably representing the 

 male fish in his wedding vestments — is occasionally met with. A second rose-coloured species, 

 Polyacantlms Deissneri, Bleek., having a larger number of black bands, is also recorded by Dr. 

 Gunther, "Catalogue of Fishes," Vol. III., p. 381, as inhabiting the rivers of Baturussak, in the 

 island of Bawean. The present form being evidently a new type of a genus not hitherto associated 

 with the Australian fish fauna, it is here distinguished by the title of Polvacanthits Oitccnslandiiv. 



The horned-trunk fish, or cow-fish as it is sometimes called, Ostracion coniiitns, L., repre- 

 sented by Chromo XVI., Fig. 10, is a tolerably familiar type, in its dried condition, in all museum 

 collections. Coffer or Box fishes are other names by which the various species are known, all 

 bearing reference to the indurated, box-like carapace, that represents the pliable, scale-covered 

 integument of most ordinary fishes. The majority of the species are brilliantly coloured, the 

 males usually eclipsing the females in this respect. In certain forms, including, more particularly, 

 a southern, Victorian and Tamsanian, species, Ostracion (Aracana) ornata, the males and females 

 differ so essentially in colour, that they are classified in standard works on ichthyology (including 

 Dr. Giinther's "Catalogue of Fishes," and MacLeay's "Australian Fishes") under the two 

 respective titles of Ostracion ornata and O. aitrita. The life tints of the male, in this instance, 

 consist of a ground colour of rich grass- or emerald-green, with longitudinal stripes and spots of 

 the most brilliant ultramarine blue, whilst that of the female is pale yellow or flesh-colour, with 

 narrower, brown, undulating lines. Specimens of this type, obtained in Tasmania, and dissected 

 by the author, demonstrated that the male and female reproductive elements were associated 

 respectively with the blue and brown striped fishes, while a yet more positive proof of the 

 resulting inference was afforded by the capture of a " hermaphrodite " specimen, in which the 

 colour patterns of the hitherto supposed separate species were combined on opposite sides of the 

 same individual. 



The little green and scarlet speckled fish, represented by Chromo XVI. Fig. 12, belongs 

 to the genus Gobius, a cosmopolitan one, abundantly represented the world over, including 

 British waters. Its mimetic resemblance to the parrot-fishes, with which it consorts in the coral- 

 pools of the Barrier reef, is very remarkable, and is, so to say, a correlation of the mimetic 

 phenomenon that obtains among the avi-fauna on the adjacent mainland, where pigeons and 

 finches, usually of more sombre tints, are found arrayed in the verdant green plumage associated 

 par excellence with the parrots. The fish here figured bears a considerable resemblance to 

 Gobius ornatus, Rupp., reported from Port Darwin. That species, however, while possessing a 

 similar green body, is ornamented with brown spots and yellow dots, while all the fins except 

 the ventrals are dotted with black ; there would appear also to be a total absence of the stripes, on 

 the cheeks and operculum and at the base of the pectoral fin, that characterise the Queensland 

 type. The specimen figured in this volume having been received, in its living state, from the 



