STUDIES IN THE ICHTHYOLOGY OF 

 QUEENSLAND. 



By J. DOUGLAS OGILBY. 



(Read before the Royal Society of Queensland, 25th April, 1903 J. 



1. 



SCORP^NID.E (1). 



Among the various products of our bays and estuaries, which 

 are apt to make their presence known to the unwary in an 

 unequivocal manner, few are more widely and invidiously known 

 than the small fishes to which the names " Bullrout " and 

 " Fortescue " have been given, and which have been grouped 

 together under the common name Centropof/on by Dr. Giinther 

 and other authors. The genus belongs to the scorpaenoid division 

 of the sub-order Loricati, or " mail-cheeked fishes," the name 

 being derived from the exceptional development of the third bone 

 of the infraorbital ring, which is in most of the genera produced 

 backwards to the preopercular bone, and so forms an admirable 

 protective covering to the sides of the head. 



The family Scorpmnidce, (Scorpion-Fishes) is abundantly 

 represented throughout all temperate and tropical seas. It is 

 provisionally divisible into three groups — Sehastiim, Ajdstince, 

 and Scorpcenina:.-^' 



Among other peculiarities the second group is characterised 

 by a strong spinous prolongation of the preorbital bone ; 

 this is more or less erectile at will, and can be, and indeed is 



*This is not to be considered a natural division, as the whole series, 

 outside of the obviously sebastiae and scorpeenine forms, requires careful 

 revision, some of those v^rhich would here be placed among the ApistincB 

 being, like Notesthes, closely related to the Sebastince, others, like Lion'anium 

 as closely to the Scorpcenince, while some may have trigloid affinities. 



