188 Prof. M'Coy on the Recent Zoologrj 



got four specimens from Hobson's Bay for the museum ; it is 

 too rare, however, to have a popular name or be eaten. 



Of the family Clupeidae, or herrings, there is only one of 

 much importance in our seas. A specimeu of this was first 

 brought to me in August 18()4, from a small shoal, then seen 

 for the first time in Hobson's Bay, and quite unknown to the 

 fishermen. It was supposed by the sender to be the " Yarra 

 herring'^ or "grayling^' gone out to sea; but, on examination, 

 I found it was the Clupea melanosticta of Temminck, or the 

 species of pilchard so abundant on the shores of Japan. In the 

 same mouth in the succeeding year, they appeared in greater abun- 

 dance in the bay, and were caught by thousands for the market. 

 After remaining for a few weeks they disappeared until the same 

 time in 1866, when they arrived in such (countless thousands that 

 carts were filled with them by simply dipping them out of the sea 

 with large baskets ; hundreds of tons of them were sent up the 

 country to the inland market, and through the city for several 

 weeks they were sold for a few pence the bucketful ; while the 

 captains of ships entering the bay reported having passed through 

 closely packed shoals of them for miles. They may probably 

 be now expected every year as a very important addition to the 

 food-fishes of the country. I imagine some alteration of the 

 bed of the sea, from the earthquake disturbances north of 

 Australia about that time, may have facilitated or induced the 

 extension of the shoals in such unusual quantities from Japan to 

 our coasts. Duperrey (or Lesson and Garnot) found it in New 

 Zealand ; and Cuvier and Valenciennes referred their specimen 

 to the genus Alausa. I find, however, that the authors of the 

 * Histou'e des Poissons' were in error, and Temminck in the 

 right, in the former assigning five, and the latter seven, gill- 

 rays ; and it has also a row of teeth on the tongue, as was cor- 

 rectly stated by Temminck and erroneously denied by Cuvier 

 and Valenciennes. The fish is therefore a Meletta, and not an 

 Alausa, and should be referred to as the Meletta melanosticta 

 (Temm. sp.). A true anchovy I find in great abundance in Hob- 

 son^s Bay; it is the Engi-aulis australis (Wh. sp.), and if iden- 

 tical, as Cuvier supposes, with all the synonyms he groups 

 under his E. Broivnii, would be almost a cosmopolitan species. 

 The Chatoesus come is occasionally to be found in the market. 

 Of the family Galaxidse are several interesting species in our 

 rivers, going under the vulgar names of "gudgeon" and 

 " trout." The species of Galaxias bearing the latter name in 

 the Yarra and the Gippsland rivers is a beautiful new species, 

 Galaxias ocellatus (M'Coy), marked with large circular eye-like 

 spots, re|)rescnting closely the G. truttaceus of Tasmania. The 

 species called popularly "gudgeon " in the Yarra is the Galaxias 



