FISHES. — MCCULLOCH. 121 



median line of the body and running along the middle of the 

 caudal peduncle. The scales along the bases of the dorsal and 

 anal fins are not larger than those of the sides, and their edges 

 are strongly spinate. 



Dorsal spines strong and coarsely carinate ; the second is 

 much the longest and the folio wiug ones decrease evenly back- 

 wards. The rays are all simple and increase in length to about 

 the eighteenth ; their basal portions are armed with minute 

 spinuies on either side. Anal similar to the dorsal though the 

 spines and rays are a little shorter. Ventrals rounded, inserted 

 below or behind the pectorals ; the spine is long and carinate, 

 and the rays are divided. Pectoral short and broadly rounded, 

 its rays simple. Caudal slightly rounded, the rays branched. 



Colour. — Silvery, the membrane of the soft dorsal, anal, and 

 ventral blackish. The skin on the sides of the moitth and the 

 gill-membranes are black. Iris golden with a dark inner ring. 



Described from a specimen 270 mm. long from the snout to 

 the end of the caudal fin. Eight other examples, 203-280 mm. 

 long, were obtained with it, and show some little variation in 

 the depth and form of the body. The back is more abruptly 

 elevated before the dorsal fin in some than in others, but all differ 

 in this respect from the typical form, in which the line from the 

 head to the first dorsal spine is but little concave. Eight of my 

 specimens have four anal spines, and one has three. 



Gilchrist has described the rays of the dorsal, anal, and 

 pectoral fins as covered with minute ctenoid scales. These 

 " scales " are merely the articulations of the rays which are 

 armed with minute spinuies on either side. 



Loc— Great Australian Bight, Long. 129°28'E.. 350-450 

 fathoms; 14th May, 1913, 



Family PLEURONECTID^E. 



Genus Ammotretis, Gunther. 



Ammotretis rostratus, Gunther. 



Long-snouted Flounder. 



Ammotretis rostratus, Gunther, Brit. Mus. Cat. Fish., iv., 1862, 

 p. 458. Id., Klunzinger, Arch. Nat,, xxxviii.i., 1872, 

 p. 40, and Sitzb. Akad. Wiss. Wien, Ixxx.i., 1879, p, 407. 



