FISHES PHENOMENAL AND ECONOMICAL. 169 



long-forked caudal fins bright orange, and the remaining fins a lighter shade of 

 the same tint. The long filamentous free rays forming a fringe beneath the pectoral 

 fins were, by way of contrast, a bright vermilion red. 



Several of the Australian Polynemi attain to a considerable size. One 

 species, P. Sheridani, first recorded from the Mary and Burnett rivers in 

 Queensland, and there locally known as the King-fish, has been taken up to a 

 weight of one hundred pounds. Polynemus tetradactylus, which occurs also in India, 

 and is locally known there as the " Bahmeen " or " Pamban Salmon," is recorded 

 in Dr. Day's " Fishes of India " as attaining to a weight of over three hundred 

 pounds. In conjunction with the Giant Perch, or " Nair Fish," Lates cakarifer, 

 previously referred to, it affords most excellent sport with rod and line, using a 

 spinning bait, and as such is the subject of special mention in Mr. H. S. Thomas' 

 angling work, " The Rod in India." All of the larger Indian Polynemi are further 

 noted on account of the excellent isinglass that is manufactured from their sounds 

 or swimming bladders. 



The family of the Carangidae or Horse Mackerels, while embracing many 

 species that are practically cosmopolitan in their distribution, includes also numerous 

 essentially Australian or Indo-Pacific types. The genus Caranx, which represents one of 

 the first-named groups, comprises a species, C. trachurus, which is regarded as 

 identical with the British Horse Mackerel. What are known as Trevallies on the 

 North and Eastern, and Skipjacks on the Western, Australian Coast-lines, are 

 also members of the same genus, but mostly of a much deeper and more 

 compressed shape than the familiar British species. In the form Caranx gallus, 

 selected for illustration, Plate XXVII., fig. A, both the head and body are remarkable 

 for their angular contours, and the dorsal, anal, and pectoral fins for the filamentous 

 elongations of their primary rays. In C. radiatus, there is a more rigid, fringe-like 

 development of the second dorsal and anal rays, but the body does not depart 

 from the ordinary ovate type. Both of these two last-named species belong to 

 the tropical Australian Coast-line, and have been observed by the writer on the 

 Queensland and Western Australian sea-boards. The first-named species is 

 locally known, with reference to its shape and appendages, as the Diamond-fish 

 or Plumed Trevally, while that of the Fringed Trevally has been conferred on 

 Caranx radiatus. 



The photograph of a young individual of the first-named species, Caranx gallus, 



in which the filamentous appendages are relatively longer than in the adult fish, 

 Y 



