ON A WEAK POINT IN THE MblvlllSTOIiV i)[ 

 NEOCERATODU:^ R)RSTKItl, KRKFKT. 



By THOMAS L. BANCROFT., M.B., Edin. 



{Bead before the Royal Society of Queensland, 2nd 

 December, 1911.) 



The Avriters on Ceratodus, so far as I am aware, have 

 not touched upon a very important matter in connection 

 with the life- history of the fish. 



From the earhest date (1870) no one seemed ever 

 to have caught a small Ceratodus, i.e., a fish, an ounce 

 to a pound or so in weight ; specimens, about six pounds 

 or there about, were occasionally taken and regarded 

 as very small ones. The Blacks even were unable to find 

 the little fellows ; it was a mystery where they hid them- 

 selves ; some people thought that they went up small 

 creeks, whilst others thought that they lived in the mud 

 and some comparatively recent observations have lent 

 support to the latter theory*. 



It appears that during a dry spell at Cooranga, on 

 the Burnett, when a lagoon was drying up and all the fish 

 were concentrated in a small space, search was made for 

 Ceratodus ; several small fish were taken out of the mud ; 

 they were fish about fourteen inches in length, probably 

 about four pounds in weight • these were the smallest 

 hitherto seen, that is in their natural home, Mr. 

 Thomas Illidge has, however, reared fish from the ova 

 up to eighc months ; they were then two and a half inches 

 in length. 



All the fishes, in a lagoon drying up, are compelled 

 to sink into the mud or debris, so it cannot be said of those 

 small Ceratodus, that they were in the mud of their 

 free will. There are stretches of the Burnett River with 

 a sandy, and other parts with a rocky bottom, in which 



* Notes on ihe Ceratodus by D. O'Connor, Rep. Aust. Assn., Ad. 

 Science, Vol. XII., p. 883. 



