148 DR. RICHARDSON'S DESCRIPTION OF AUSTRALIAN FISH. 



seum, and figures of two others in the beautiful collection of drawings made at Canton 

 by John Reeves, Esq. These three Chinese fish differ so little from each other, that 

 they may prove on further examination to be mere varieties. They have larger verti- 

 cal fins than H. Conwayii with an additional soft ray or two, are shorter and higher in 

 the body, and are more or less thickly covered with round black spots. Our specimen 

 of Conwayii retains no distinct traces of markings, but on removing the varnish from 

 one side, the scales of the belly showed a bright silvery lustre, with a reddish-brown 

 tinge on the epidermis, and some dark blotches appeared on the back and sides, but no 

 defined spots smaller than the eye, as in the Chinese species. 



Odax algensis (Nob.), Kelp Fish. — Odax ulgensis, Richardson, Zool. Proceed., March 

 10, 1841. 



0. capite longiusculo ; preoperculo denticulato ; facie utrinque sex striata. 



Radii.— Bt. 5— 5 ; D. 17|12 ; A. 2|12 ; P. 14 ; V. 1|4 ; C. 12f. 



This fish is known at Port Arthur by the appellation of ' Kelp fish,' I suppose from 

 its frequenting thickets of the larger fuci. The specimen described below is said to 

 be of the usual size of the species. In the stomach I found two small crabs, nearly 

 divested of their shell but not much bruised, and many minute white bivalve shells of 

 which one or two only were entire, the rest being comminuted. A few fibrils of a red 

 fucus {Floridece, Lam.), covered with the gelatinous ova of a marine animal, were lying 

 between the pharyngeal bones. The species differs from any of those described in the 

 ' Histoire des Poissons,' in the regular and strong teeth on the edge of the ascending 

 limb of the preoperculum, but agrees with the typical species {semifasciatus) very 

 closely in the great majority of its details. 



Form. — Elongated, compressed, the profile of the head a lengthened, rather obtuse 

 cone, the lower jaw ascending rather more than the forehead descends. The head is lower 

 and longer than that of semifasciatus, its length being contained three times and a half 

 in that of the whole fish caudal included. The body has nearly the same relative height 

 with semifasciatus, but its thickness is somewhat less, being inferior to that of the head 

 at the nape . It tapers beyond the anus gradually into the stump of the tail, where 

 the height does not equal the half of that at the pectorals. The eye almost touches the 

 profile of the forehead, and is situated rather nearer to the intermaxillary symphysis 

 than to the tip of the gill-flap. The diameter of the orbit is rather less than one quarter 

 the length of the head, and it equals the space between the posterior angles of the orbit, 

 the head consequently is either considerably more compressed than in semifasciatus, 

 or the eye of the latter is proportionally smaller. 



Gape of the mouth small, horizontal, scarcely reaching half-way to the orbit. Lips 

 tumid, plaited, covering the dental surface. Suborbitar edged with soft skin, forming 

 a short lip, which is lost before it reaches the angle of the mouth as well as superiorly. 

 A row of raised tubes or pores marks the under edge of the narrow suborbitars, and 

 run beneath and behind the eye. 



