EDI BLR FISHES. 123 



wliilst l()okin<i over my collection of stings, and moi-e particularly 

 gloating over those of the Eagle Ray." 



FRESH WATER FISHES. 



The fresh waters of New Zealand are inhabited by only a few kinds 

 of fish, as comjiared with most other countries, and they are mostly of 

 small size. Nevertheless, from their abundance at certain seasons, some 

 species ai'e of considerable importance as sources of food, and in a few 

 cases jiossess more interest for the angler than is usually conceded to 

 them. 



The two first species I have to mention deserve the attention of 

 observers from their close aflinity to the Salmon and Trout, which are 

 now being rapidly acclimatized in the streams throughout the colony. 



91. IJPOKORORO. 



The above is the native name of the Gi'ayling (Prototrocies 

 oxyrhynchus), a fish that has been long familiar to the settlers in certain 

 districts, but which does not appear to have been obtained by any of the 

 earlier collectors of the fishes of New Zealand, and remained undescribed 

 till last year, when specimens were foi'warded by the Westland 

 Naturalists' Society, to Mr. F. Buckland, who eventually requested Dr. 

 Giinther's opinion about them. He recognised it to be a closely allied 

 species to a fish from the fresh waters of Australia, discovered in 1862, 

 and which he had placed in the same family with a salmonoid fish 

 {HajjJocliiton), that inhabits the cold fresh waters of Terra del Fuego, 

 the Falkland Islands, and the southern parts of the American continent. 

 Respecting the relationshij) of these genera to each other. Dr. Giinther 

 states that the Australian and New Zealand fish stand in the same 

 relation to those of South America, as the genus Coregonus (of which 

 the White Fish of the American lakes, and the Vendace of Scotland 

 are examples) does to the true Salmon, and that, " however the Southern 

 llaplocldtonidm may differ from the Salmonidce in the structure of the 

 jaws, and intestinal tract, it is a most remarkable fact that the fresh 

 waters of the southern hemisphere are inhabited by two genera with 

 adipose fins, so extremely similar in outward appearance to the northern 

 Salmonoids.* " 



In ignorance of Dr. Giinther's i*esearclies, I described the Upokororo 

 from specimens obtained in the Hutt River, in January, 1870, and made 



* " Proceedings Zoological Society," London, 10th March, 1870. 



