EDIBLE EhSIlES OF QUEENSLAND.— OGILBY. 129 



time the fry has attained a length of a couple of inches, it has all the appearance 

 of a heniirhaniphid, nor is it until considerably later in life that the beak assumes 

 the normal adult form. 



Key to the Genera. 

 a^. Gill-rakers developed .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. i. Belone. 



a-. Gill-rakers absent or vestigial. 



6'. Three pair of upper pharyngeals (2nd, 3rd, and 4th) dentigei-ous. 



c^. Body subterete or but moderately compressed . . . . . . ii. Tylosurus. 



C-. Body strongly compressed . . . . . . . . . . . . iii. Athlennes. 



6-. One pair only of upper jDharyngeals (3rd) dentigerou-; .. .. iv. Xenentodon, 



ATHLENNES Jordan & Fordice. 



AthUnncs Jordan &, Fordice, Proe. U. S. Nat. Mvis., ix, 1886, p. 345 (Mans) ; Jordan & 

 Evermann, Bull. U. S. Fish. Comm., xxiii, 1903, p. 125 ; Regan, Ann. & Mag. Nat. 

 Hist. (8) vii, 1911, p. 332. 



Body elongate and strongly compressed, the sides flattened. Jaws slender, 

 the premaxillary elevated proximally; base of mandible very deep. Anterior 

 dorsal rays forming a lobe. No gill-rakers. Second and third upper pharyngeals 

 dentigerous; lower pharyngeal elongate and narrow, the dentigerous plate 

 scarcely expanded.^ 



Belcnids of moderate size from the warmer parts of the Western Atlantic, 

 Pacific, and Indian Oceans. Three perhaps four closely allied forms have been 

 described ; some authorities unite them in one species, under the name Athlenncs 

 hians. 



Remarks: — Some six years ago the late Dr. Albert Gunther* united under 

 one name, Bclone hians, all the various forms of Athlennes known to him. For 

 reasons given below I am not disposed to concur in this view, believing that the 

 typical Western Atlantic species, A. hians Valenciennes,^ is quite distinct from 

 the North-Western Pacific A. schisniatorhynchus Bleeker,® from the Eastern 

 Australian A. cmruleofasciatus Stead, and probably from the Hawaiian form 

 associated with A. hians by Jordan and Evermann.'^ Of the Indo-Ethiopian 

 species, Belone melanostigma Valenciennes,® I am not in a position to form a 

 judgment, because of the meagreness of the two descriptions to which I have 

 access, those of Valenciennes and Day^ (who makes it synonymous with 

 schismatorhynchns) ; in neither of these descriptions is any mention made of 

 the remarkable compression of the body nor the conspicuous premaxillary ridge, 

 the two dominant characteristics of the species, if it be identical with the 

 Japanese fish and an Athlennes. In 1908 Stead, under the name of Tylosurus 

 cceruleofasciatiis, added, from the New South Wales coast, yet another Athlennes 

 to the above list; it is with this form, which has recently been obtained in 



^ Jordan & Evermann say of this generic title — " This name was inadvertently written 

 ' Athlennes' by its authors, and as this form has now been several times used it may remain so. 

 Ablennes was intended, as the etymology shows ; Athlennes is meaningless, but euphonious," 



* Fische d. Stxdsee, p. 353. 



^ Hist. Nat. Poiss., xviii, p. 432. 



« Atlas Tchth., vi, p. 49. 



' Bull. U. S. Fish. Comm., xxiii, p. 125. 



» Ibid., p. 



' Fish. India, p. 510 

 I 



