72 MEMOIRS OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSE.UM. 



absolute silence until Jordan and Evermann (1) report that it is " an excellent 

 and valued food-fish." To its excellence we can ourselves bear witness. 



Rangt : — Warmer parts of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. On the Queens- 

 land ('oast it occurs from south to north, and has been specially recorded from 

 Southport and Moreton Bay, S.Q. (Ogilby) ; Percy Islands. M.Q. ('Alleyne & 



Much ay as C. edt ntulus) ; Cleveland Bay. NT.Q. (Klunzinger and Taylor) ; Torres 

 Strait (Macleay) • and Darnley Island (Tosh). Other Australian localities are 

 Houtinan's Abrolhos (Richardson) and Fremantle (Waite), "W.A. It has 

 not yet been recorded from New South Wales, but the fact that it is by no means 

 uncommon in Queensland waters suggests its presence on the Northern shores of 

 the Mother State. With Tasmania's pretensions we have already dealt. Passing 

 northward we rind it recorded from Port Moresby, B.N.G., by Macleay. In 

 the Malayan subregion, proceeding westward. Bleeker has reported it from 

 Goram. Waigiou, Ceram, Ternate, Amboina, Celebes, Madura, Borneo, Biliton, 

 ■lava. Thousand Islands. Banca, Bintang, Rio, Sunda, Singapore, Sumatra, and 

 Tanara (which last 1 am unable to locate) and Cantor from Pinang. Jordan and 

 Richardson extended its range still further north through the Philippines to 

 Formosa; still again westward we find it inhabiting the seas of the Andamans, 

 Ceylon, and the Indian Peninsula, and onward to the Seychelles, Mauritius, 

 Madagascar, and Mozambique, till we finally take leave of it in this direction in 

 the typical waters of the Reel Sea. To the eastward, however, although it has 

 forced its way through the Tropical Pacific apparently to its ultimate limit, its 

 course is not so readily traceable; Giinther makes no mention of it in the Fisehe 

 der Sudsee, but Jordan and Scale record it from Samoa, Fiji, and the Hawaiian 

 Archipelago, while others report it from the Pacific Coasts of Mexico (Cape San 

 Lucas | and Panama, but of these latter we shall have some remarks to make 

 further on. 



Dimensions: — While the largest specimen of which we have any personal 

 knowledge measured ;i little under 400 millim., the species attains a much greater 

 size on the Indian Coast, whence specimens of 840 millim. have been recorded 

 by Gunther (1), and even up to 915 millim. by Day (1). 



Remarks: — According to the description given by Jordan and Evermann 

 (3) American examples differ from ours in several important characters. For 

 instance the eastern form is much deeper, the depth of the body being 2-33 to 2 

 in its length in American and Hawaiian examples as against 2-9 to 2-4 in those 

 from Australia and westward; the rule, however, is not without exceptions in 

 both areas, for according to Gill's description the typical C. panunu nsis belongs 

 to the slender form, while the typical C. obtusiceps 16 belongs to the deeper. 

 Again the teeth in the young of the eastern fish are said to be granular, while 

 in ours they are villiform. Lastly the beautiful color-pattern of the caudal fin, 



'-We have to thank Mr. McCulloch for kindly verifying our identification of this species 

 with C. speciosus, by an examination of Macleay 's type. 



