EDIBLE FISHES OF QUEENSLAND.— OGILBY. 163 



moderate. Opercle with two blunt points, the upper little prominent. Dorsal 

 with X 9 rays, the spinous portion much longer than the soft, depressible in a 

 scaly sheath. Caudal emarginate. Anal with iii 8 rays, the spines strong. 

 Pectoral long and pointed, with 13 rays, the 2 upper simple. Ventral inserted 

 below or a little behind the pectoral-base ; accessory scale present. 



Fishes of moderate size, inhabiting the warmer zones of the Indian and 

 "Western Pacific Oceans; one species from the West Coast of Africa. A large 

 number of species — ;about 90 — have been described by various authors, but only 

 about one third of these are sufficiently characterized. Of the irrecognizable 

 remainder Valenciennes is responsible for fully half, but of these Sauvage claims 

 to have rediscovered nine, namely — L. frcenatus, L. semicinctus, L. olivaceus, 

 L. boi'honicus — and Steindachner one — L. genivittatns — but the works in which 

 these authors redescribe the species are not available to me.^ Two of the 

 remaining species — L. >cyanoxantlius and L. cinnaharinus — are figured by 

 Richardson in the Icones Piscium, 1843, pi. iv, tigs 1 & 2, as coming from 

 Australia, but they have not since been recognized. 



Owing to the many characters which, in most fishes differential, are 

 common to all the members of this genus, the difficulty of distinguishing between 

 the species is greatly increased. On this subject T^leeker pertinently remarks* : — 



"The species of the genus are numerous but rather difficult to define 

 satisfactorily. They resemble one another in the formula of the spines and rays, 

 in the number of the scales on the lateral line varying only between 45 and 50, 

 in the lepidosis of the head, etc. We have attempted to find specific characters 

 in the length of the snout, in the relative height of the preorbital, and in the 

 form of the posterior jaw-teeth; but these characters have only a proportional 

 value, since the snout becomes longer with the age of the individual, the height of 

 the preorbital increases from the young to the adult state, and the lateral teeth 

 ot the jaws, obtuse or rounded and molariform in old examples, are frequently 

 conical and pointed in the young of the same species. Nor do we find more 

 distinctive characters in the coloration. The large blackish lateral spot, thought 

 to be characteristic of certain species, is often present in immature individuals 

 only and usually disappears with advancing age. The body-colors, vivid in the 

 young and often variegated Avith bands, bars, ocelli, and spots, become more or 

 less uniform in the adult, and commonly disappear in such as are preserved for 

 a length of time in liquor. The most distinctive characters may be found in 

 the number of longitudinal .series of scales above the lateral line, in the shape of 

 the profile, in the relative heights of the body and head [as compared with their 

 respective lengths] , in the strength and relative length of the dorsal spines, and 

 in the height of the anal [as compared with its length]." 



LETHRINUS NEBULOSUS (Forskal). 



Scicena nebulosa Forskal, Descr. Anim., 1775, p. 52 ; Bonnatenv, Encycl. Meth., Ichth., 1788, 

 p. 124 (after Forskal). 



3 Sauvage, in Grandidier's History of Madagascar, vol. xvi, 1891, and Steindachner, 

 Verb. Zool-bot. Ges. Wien., 1866, p. 478. 

 * Atlas Ichth., viii, p. 110. 



