170 



THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 



has been utilised as a head-piece to this Chapter. A Tasmanian species, Caranx 

 georgianus, known as the Silver Trevally, which is much esteemed for the table, is 

 represented by No. 11 in the series of Plaster Casts photographically reproduced in 



Plate XXVIII. 



The giants of their tribe in this group of the Carangid* are the several 

 members of the genus Seriola, which are extensively represented throughout the 

 temperate Australian waters, and are known locally as Yellow-tails, Samson-fish, 

 and King-fish. Two species, Seriola grandis and S. Lalandii, are found as far 

 south as Tasmania ; while S. gigas, of the Western Australian Coast, is especially 

 plentiful in the neighbourhood of Houtman's Abrolhos. This species attains to 

 a weight of over one hundred-weight, and is locally known there as the King-fish. 

 The Tailor-fish, Temnodon saltator, while a near ally of Seriola, is much more 

 cosmopolitan in its distribution. It abounds on the Eastern, Southern, and Western 

 Coasts of Australia, and, ranging throughout nearly all the tropical and sub-tropical 

 seas, constitutes an important fishery on the Atlantic Coast of the United States, 

 where it is distinguished by the title of the Blue-fish. 



The occurrence of the Frost Fish or Scabbard-fish, Lepidopus caudatus, belonging 

 to the family of the Trichiuridae, in New Zealand and Tasmanian waters, has 

 already been referred to among the cosmopolitan species that are indigenous to 

 European as well as to Australian seas. A more essentially Australian type, 

 belonging to the same family, and of a correspondingly elongate band-like form, is 

 the well-known Barracouta, of the Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Hobart markets. 

 Even this species, however, while not represented in the Northern Hemisphere, is 

 abundant upon the Coast of Chili, and also at the Cape of Good Hope, where it 

 is known by the popular title of the "Snook." 



The photograph of a coloured cast of a fine specimen of the Barracouta occupies 

 the greater portion of the top line of the series represented in Plate XXVIII. Its 

 length in the flesh was just three feet. Much difficulty was experienced in securing a 

 specimen of this fish for modelling in which the elongate but deeply indented dorsal 

 fin was uninjured, this structure in the majority of the examples brought to market 

 being much mutilated as a consequence of the rough conditions that attend their 

 capture. The habits of the Barracouta are essentially gregarious, the species 

 assembling in large numbers, and pursuing and preying upon the shoals of smaller 

 fish of every description at the surface of the sea. It is in fact the presence of 

 these marauding shoals of Barracouta that to a large measure renders it impracticable 



