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V. Description 0/ Australian Fish. By John Richardson, M.D., F.R.S., &jc., Inspector 



of Naval Hospitals, Haslar. 



Communicated June 25, 1839, March 10, 1840, and March 9, 1841. 



The fish described in the following pages were mostly collected at Port Arthur, in 

 Van Diemen's Land, by Deputy Assistant Commissary General F. J. Lempriere, Esq., 

 and forwarded to the author by His Excellency Sir John Franklin, K.C.H., Lieutenant- 

 Governor of the colony. The collection was sent to England as opportunity offered, in 

 three portions, the first being despatched from Port Arthur in October 1837, and the 

 second, a year afterwards. The specimens were carefully put up in casks, in spirits, 

 and, considering the length of the voyage, arrived in tolerably good order. The colours, 

 it is true, had in most instances faded, or altogether disappeared, but only a few of the 

 fattest and bulkiest of the fish were so much injured as not to admit of the essential 

 parts of their structure being determined. Mr. Lempriere had numbered the specimens 

 in reference to a list which he sent of the local names, with their colours when recent ; 

 but the greater part of the labels having been rubbed off", it is only in a few instances 

 that his very useful remarks could be confidently referred to the proper subjects. A 

 copy of his Ust is subjoined, with the addition of the specific names of the fish to which 

 they are supposed to allude. 



Detailed descriptions of fifteen of the species, and the characters of two new genera, 

 Nemadactylus and Latris, were read before the Society on the 25th of June, 1839, and 

 a second communication, read on the 10th of March, 1840, gave an account of an 

 equal number of species. This last paper contained also the external characters of Ho- 

 plegnathus, a new genus, founded on a single dried specimen presented to Haslar Museum 

 by the surgeon of a convict ship, but unaccompanied by any notice of the place of its 

 capture, though it is supposed that he procured it at Hobart Town ; and of a Syngnathus, 

 belonging to the same museum, also reported to be from the southern seas, but the pre- 

 cise habitat of this fish is also unknown. A third paper, read on the 9th of March, 

 1841, contained a description of a freshwater eel, of Mr. Lempriere's collection ; some 

 additional remarks on the Narcine, described in the second paper ; the characters of a 

 Cheilodactylus from Western Australia, brought home by Mr. Gould, but which had 

 been previously found by Parkinson on the east coast ; and a description of an Ostracion, 

 also of Australian origin, belonging to the museum at Fort Pitt. 



These three papers are here incorporated, under the sanction of the Council ; and the 

 author, having recently received the third part of Mr. Lempriere's collection, preserved 



