
so Sg ee pg 
4 -; J 
Provinctan, Museum Report. Q 21 






harlottes, near the northern end. His record is undoubtedly correct, and it is evident that 
_ Brilepis was taken on the continental shelf, rather than in enclosed waters. 
While in Vancouver during November, at the plant of the Canadian Fishing Company, the 
writer was shown two other specimens of this fish. . 
Under the heading of “ A Freak Fish,” a statement with a photograph of the larger was 
_ given in the Pacific Fisherman for November, as follows :-— 
While the halibut-schooner * Borealis” was fishing with halibut-trawls in 240 fathoms of 
water in Rennel Sound, on the west coast of Queen Charlotte Island, British Columbia, during 
October, a fish which weighed, in the round, 175 Ib., and when dressed 145 lb., was caught. If 
measured 5 feet 10 inches in length. The opinion was expressed that it was “a large sea-bass ” 
from Southern Pacifie waters. Through the kindness of the company manager a smaller 
specimen caught at the same time was sent to Stanford University in a frozen condition. There 
3 it has heen carefully examined and compared witb a Japanese specimen, undoubtedly the same 
_ Species. 
It will be noted that the locality was the same as the corrected one for the first specimen. 
The probability is that there is an available explanation for the occurrence. In the region 
2 indicated the continental shelf drops with great rapidity to oceanic depths, and a halibut-trawl 
_ set in 150 fathoms on its shoreward end frequently drops as far as its buoys will allow it on 
_ the seaward end. This may be as much as 400 fathoms. It has only been in recent years, 
_ particularly in the winter, that halibut-fishing has been carried on in depths of 140 fathoms 
and more, as has been shown in the reports of the British Columbia Commissioner of Fisheries 
for 1915. The cousin of the present species, the Alaska black cod (Anoplopoma), inhabits 
considerable depths also, and in the last few years more of them are being caught by the 
halibut-boats. The fishermen even occasionally bring up Macrouroid species, formerly utterly 
unknown to them. This “rare fish” then has perhaps been caught by the fishermen while they 
Were utilizing unusual depths, and it may well be common and relatively abundant in its 
peculiar habitat. 
. The Japanese fishermen, it is worthy of note, fish their waters more closely than is done 
on our coasts, and Dr. Jordan and Professor Snyder say: ‘ According to Kuma Aoki, an 
intelligent fisherman of Misaki, it is occasionally taken in the Kuro Siwo, it is not rare, and 
: reaches the weight of 200 lb. Although so rare in collections, the species is well known to the 
fishermen.” There is no good reason why more extensive exploitation of our fishing-ground will 
not bring to light at least an abundance equal to that of the species in Japan. It is hence 
unjust to call the fish a “stray.” and one must be reserved in calling it “rare.” Since the only 
_ specimens known to be preserved in museums have come from Japan, and the type of the 
species (from Monterey, California) which was in the collection of the California Academy of 
Sciences in San Francisco has been destroyed, the following notes regarding the specimens now 
at hand are appended :— 
The fish, 112 em. in fotal length and 9S to base of caudal, is bass-like, with massive head 
and rotund body; its width 24 its depth, but with somewhat slender caudal peduncle, nearly 
_ round and quickly tapering. The interorbital is wide, convex, and the preorbitals are prominent, 
nearly overhanging. The eyes are small, slightly oval lateral in outlook, and over a wide sub- 
orbital. The maxillary ends below the centre of the pupil. The lower jaw projects somewhat, 
its tip lying in the axis of the body, continues the profile lines of the head and body, which taper 
anteriorly and posteriorly. 
The teeth are in a band six or seven series wide anteriorly in the upper jaw, four or five 
. below, narrowing posteriorly ; recurved, slender, and sharp; none of them canine-like or enlarged ; 
in a V-shaped patch on yvomer; in narrow hands on palatines. 
The gill-arches and viscera were removed when the fish was frozen. : 
The dorsals are apparently separated by the space of two spines, but dissection shows these 
_ to be present, buried below the thick skin; two anterior spines are very short; the third is the 
longest, with the margin of the fin falling straightly to the first buried spine. Preceding the 
Soft rays are two unjoined rays (or spines), closely applied to the third. The soft dorsal is 
highest at the fifth ray, slightly amarginate in outline. When supine the longest dorsal ray 
_ reaches over the bases of the seven following rays, while at the similarly shaped anal reaches 
ate the base of the last. The last rays in both fins are less in length than the eye diameter. 
ad 



