152 DR. RICHARDSON'S DESCRIPTION OF AUSTRALIAN FISH. 



In external form L. australis closely resembles cwlorrhynchus, but in the latter the 

 scales are armed with thirty or forty acute spines which are not arranged in rows. The 

 scales clothing the sides of the head have very short spines, and those on the promi- 

 nent lines are coarser than the others. The teeth are very fine but not remarkably 

 short, and there is only a single row of them on the lower jaw. The subjoined descrip- 

 tion of australis points out the differences of that species in these respects. As to 

 trachyrhynchus, its tapering snout and other peculiarities of external form prevent 

 any danger of its being confounded with the Van Diemen's Land fish. 



Mr. Lempriere remarks that only four examples of the Antarctic Imminiset were 

 taken at Tasman's peninsula in five years, that it has not yet received any appellation 

 from the colonists, and that nothing is known of its habits. Its Greenland congener 

 is named ' Imminiset,' whence Shaw framed the English trivial name which we have 

 adopted. It is said to inhabit very deep waters, to make a grunting noise like a Gur- 

 nard, to feed upon worms and zoophytes, to swim with great swiftness, and to lash 

 briskly with its tail when caught. The Greenlanders eat it. 



Fon«.— Moderately compressed, the profile increasing in depth from the acute snout 

 to near the anus, and tapering from thence to the acute point of the lengthened slender 

 tail. The greatest depth is rather less than one-sixth of the total length, and the 

 greatest thickness is rather more than one-half the depth. The section of the body is 

 obtusely oval at the anus, and becomes more and more compressed from thence to the 

 end of the tail. The vent is twice as far from the tip of the tail as it is from the end 

 of the snout. 



The head is large, and is almost rigidly encased by bone and its rough scaly cover- 

 ing. Its profile when the mouth is shut is nearly triangular, with an acute edge 

 extending from the apex of the snout to the lower margin of the gill-cover. This edge 

 is almost straight, having only a slight undulation beneath the nostrils, and corresponds 

 to the reflected edges of the nasal, suborbitar and preopercular bones. Beneath this 

 edge the snout and cheeks slope in towards the mouth and lower jaw, and the integu- 

 ments are covered by scales more minutely and equally granulated than those on the 

 other parts of the head. The nearly vertical sides of the head slope suddenly off 

 from before the orbit to the apex of the snout. The very large eye approaches near 

 the profile but does not alter its direction. The orbit is exactly its own diameter behind 

 the tip of the snout, and rather further from the gill-opening. There is an obtuse and 

 but shghtly elevated ridge extending beneath the snout from its apex to the middle of 

 the upper lip, and a more prominent one on the upper surface of the snout which 

 ends between the anterior angles of the orbits. Between the orbits the cranium is 

 slightly hollowed, and on. each side of the hollow there is an obscure lateral ridge 

 which disappears on the nape. There is also a mesial ridge on the nape, which reaches 

 from behind the orbits half way to the first dorsal. An elliptical supra-scapular patch 

 is bounded by slightly elevated borders, of which the lower one is the lateral ridge above 

 mentioned, but the patch is more readily distinguished by the scales which clothe it 



