152 MEMOIES OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM. 



find that none of the three is of any differential value, but if on the contrary we 

 select from each species a single example of practically the same size we find 

 that, Avhile the first character should be discarded as useless, the other two hold 

 good absolutely. P^'or instance, eomj^aring a 148 millim. hot la with a 155 millim.'^ 

 hailloni, we see that these characters compare as follow — Length of ventral fin to 

 body-length, T. hotla 7-9, T. hailloni 9-55; length of caudal fin in saiiu-, T. hoiJa 

 2-5, T. baiUoni 2-15. So far, therefore, as this method of comparison goes. Day's 

 conclusions are fully justified.-* In the interval between the publication of 

 these two works, Playfair in 1867 had obtained our species at the Seychelles. In 

 1876 Giinther, still persisting in his refusal to recognise the distinction between 

 the two species, again makes a notable addition to the eastern range of this 

 tracliinote, recording it from Samoa and even, on the authority of Garrett, as 

 far east as the Society Islands, while Peters in the same year added New Britain 

 to the list. Bleeker, in one of the last papers of his busy life, records it from 

 Mauritius, and Boulenger some years later received it from JNIaskat on the Persian 

 Gulf, neither of these localities, however, adding anything to its range. We next 

 hear of it through the Expedition sent out in 1896 by the Koyal Society of London 

 to Funafuti, where Iledley succeeded in collecting for the Australian Museum a 

 very young example, measuring but 85 millim. in total length, as recorded by 

 Waite. This record is interesting as indicating a new radial of range, stretching 

 outwards about one thousand miles north-eastwards from Tanna. Waite was also 

 fortunate in obtaining a large example, measuring 560 millim. over all, from Lord 

 Howe Island through the kind offices of Mr. W. S. Thompson : both of our spotted 

 swallowtails are, therefore, visitants to the " Madeira of the Pacific." Previous 

 to this Steindachner had added Socotra and the coast of South Arabia to the list 

 of known localities. Jordan and Scale had nothing new to advance as to its 

 Pacific distribution, but the senior author in conjuncton with Starks obtained a 

 single specimen "a little deeper in form than is usual in this species" from the 

 Riu Kin Archipelago (Loo Choo Islands) , which up to the present time constitutes 

 the northern limit of its distribution. Subseciuently Formosa and the Philip- 

 pines were added by Jordan and Richardson. In a paper published in 1911,-^ 

 dealing with the Shore Fishes collected by the Albatross Expedition to the 

 Tropical Pacific in 1899-1900 Kendall and Goldsborough attempt to review the 

 status of the Indo-Pacific spotted trachinotes. These authors commence with a 

 criticism of Day's figure of T. haiUoni as regards the extension of the maxillary ; 

 this criticism is fully justified, but the illustrations in the '' Fishes of India" are 

 so frequently inaccurate in matters of detail, that it is questionable whether this 

 particular inaccuracy, neutralised as it is by a correct description, merits the 

 prominence given to it. The authors proceed then to discuss the length of the 

 vertical fin lobes, a character on which far too much importance is placed, for 

 the variation in this respect is very great even in a single species and, as I have 

 shown before,-" is not contingent on the size or age of the individual, and is, 

 therefore, of no structural value. The measurements given by them are also most 

 confusing; in some cases those of the lobes are given '' in length," in others " in 

 base of fin," so that there is no standard of comparison, and, therefore, no 



23 From tip of snout to root of caudal fin. 

 2* Fishes of Malabar 1865 and Fishes of India 1876. 



2'' I was nnfortiuiately imaware of tins paper when I wrote the article on T. bulla in last 

 year's Memoirs. 



2" Memoirs Queensl. Mus., iii, p. 96. 



