104 DR. RICHARDSON'S DESCRIPTION OF AUSTRALIAN FISH. 



■which after the fifth become perceptibly more and more slender ; all are shghtly curved 

 backwards. The soft rays are scarcely taller than the last spinous one to which they 

 closely adjoin, and they diminish but little in length towards the end of the fin. The 

 anal is short and triangular ; its first spine is very short ; its second is nearly half the 

 length of the soft rays, and is stronger and as long as the third spine, which it receives 

 into its posterior groove. The position of the fin is under the middle of the articulated 

 dorsal, than which it is much higher, the length of its soft rays being equal to those of 

 the ventrals. The bases of the pectorals are covered with small scales. The dorsal 

 shuts into a groove formed by a scaly fillet on each side, and lines of minute scales 

 extend nearly to the tips of the caudal rays. 



Scales. — The head is covered with small scales, except the snout anterior to the 

 nostrils, the first suborbitar, the jaws, branchiostegous membranes, and edge of the 

 gill-cover. A very small cluster of minute scales marks the site of the supra-scapular 

 bone, and the breast is covered by small scales. The scales of the body are moderately 

 large, and have thin membranous edges, without teeth on the margins or surface, but 

 the base of each scale is impressed by four or five short furrows with corresponding cre- 

 natures. There are about sixty-eight scales in a row to the base of the caudal. The 

 lateral line is shghtly arched anteriorly, and is most distant from the dorsal profile 

 near its commencement, though even there it is twice as far from the rim of the belly. 

 In running backwards it gradually approaches the back, and comes nearest to it at the 

 end of the soft dorsal ; but in continuing onwards to the base of the caudal it re- 

 cedes from the upper outline of the tail. When the skin of the fish is held between the 

 eye and the light, the lateral line appears to be a continuous tube, from which short 

 branches pass ofFobHquely upwards, one to each scale. These simple branchlets alone 

 are seen when the fish is entire : there are about sixty-six of them. 



Colour. — The true colours can no longer be detected in the specimens, but the dried 

 skins exhibit a dark belt that runs downwards and backwards over the eye and gill- 

 cover to the base of the pectoral, where it meets another descending from the nape over 

 the edge of the gill-flap. A broader band takes in the three first short dorsal spines, 

 and passing obliquely backwards and downwards, tapers away on the side beneath the 

 middle of the pectoral. A black patch includes the fifth and seven following spines, and 

 from it a stripe extends backwards under the base of the dorsal to the tail. There are 

 indistinct vestiges of small spots on the caudal. Parkinson's neat pencil drawing of the 

 Endeavour River fish shows a black bar crossing the snout before the nostrils and two 

 between the eyes which meet on the cheek, and running onwards to the pectoral, are 

 there joined by the nuchal stripe, forming by their union a single band, which is 

 continued backwards to the ventrals. The band from the three short dorsal spines is 

 exactly as in Mr. Gould's specimens ; but the broader one behind it commences near 

 the tip of the third and highest dorsal spine and passes over all the succeeding rays to 

 the tenth, whence it is continued as described to the lower lobe of the caudal. 



