168 



THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 



The Tassel fishes, Polynemidce, constitute one of the leading groups of economic 

 value indigenous to Australian waters, though in this instance most abundantly 

 represented in the essentially tropical rivers and estuaries. The distinguishing features 

 of the most characteristic species of the single genus, Polynemus, is the almost salmon- 

 like contour of their shapely bodies, correlated with which is the peculiar free style- 

 like or filamentous character of a certain number of the rays of the pectoral fins. 

 The most highly esteemed esculent species, Polynemus tetradactylus, is distinguished in 

 the northern districts of Queensland and Western Australia with reference to its shape 

 as the northern salmon. As its technical name implies, its free pectoral rays are 

 only four in number, and these do not exceed in length the adjacent membrane- 

 united rays. In the majority of other known species there are five free pectoral, and 

 in one small but new form discovered by the writer in the Ord river, Western Australia, 

 in association with the surveying expedition (1888) of H.M.S. " Myrmidon," there are 

 seven such rays, four of which may extend backwards beyond the extremity of the very 

 elongate lobes of the caudal fin. By way of compliment to Captain the Hon. H. P. 

 Foley Vereker, in command of the above-named vessel, as whose guest the writer 

 first visited Cambridge Gulf, the name of Polynemus Verekeri has been conferred 

 upon this species.* This phenomenal fish not having been previously figured, 

 except in diagrammatic outline, its aspect as drawn and coloured from life is 

 herewith reproduced in monochrome. 



W. Bacille-Kent, del. 

 SEVEN-BAYED TASSEL FISH, /Ml/Hi nmx J'ereteri, ORD RIVER, CAMBRIDGE GULF, W.A. NATURAL SIZE. 



The life tints of this newly discovered species are very distinctive, the ground 

 colour being a prominent chrome yellow with darker shadings, the pectoral and 



*Proc. Royal Soc., Queensland. Vol. Vl. part V., 1889. 



