FISHES PHENOMENAL AND ECONOMICAL. 173 



correctly to the more considerable number of genera referred to this family, which 

 possess the physiological distinction of being devoid of an air-bladder. To that 

 anatomical fact they owe the circumstance of being sluggish, bottom-reposing fish. 

 The Australian Whitings, Sillago and its allies, on the other hand, possess a well- 

 developed air-bladder, and are of the most active habits, cruising about in shoals, 

 after the manner of Red Mullets, over the surfaces of the sandy banks upon which 

 they feed. Different species of these Whitings abound throughout Australian waters 

 from Tasmania to Torres Straits, and are all held in high esteem for the lightness 

 and delicacy of flavour and whiteness of their flesh. It is upon this account that 

 they have received the title that has been popularly awarded them. 



The Flathead, genus Platycephalus, is another essentially characteristic Australian 

 group that, like Sillago, possesses specific representatives throughout the seas of that 

 Island-Continent, all of which are more or less esteemed for food. A character- 

 istic representative of the commonest Tasmanian species, Platycephalus bassensis, 

 occupies the second position from the right immediately beneath the Barracouta in 

 Plate XXVIII. While unrepresented in European waters by any specific type, the genus 

 Platycephalus is closely related to the Bull-heads and Gurnards, and is on such 

 account relegated to the same family of the Cottidse. The true Gurnards or Gurnets, 

 belonging to the genus Trigla, are typified by several Australian species, many of them 

 being remarkable for the brilliant, butterfly-wing-like aspect of their large pectoral fins. 

 None of them, however, attain to a large size or are sufficiently plentiful to constitute 

 a marketable species, as in British waters. A fish of somewhat rare occurrence that 

 is occasionally taken on the Tasmanian coast, and is also referable to the Cottidse 

 family, is the singular Velvet Fish, Holoxenus cutaneus. A photograph of a coloured 

 plaster cast of this species occupies the second position from the left in the same serial 

 line that contains the Flathead. The most remarkable feature of this species is not so 

 much its form as its wonderful colouring, which may be a brilliant scarlet vermilion 







throughout, or a varied mixture of vermilion and orange. Added to this, the skin, 

 which is devoid of scales, is very soft and loose and of a granular or pilose texture 

 suggestive of the surface of wet flannel or velvet. 



The Grey Mullet family, Mugilidse, is represented so abundantly, numerically and 

 specifically, in the Australian seas and rivers as to constitute one of the leading 

 economic groups. Its members agree, however, so nearly in all essential characters 

 with their British, or it might be said, cosmopolitan, congeners as to dispense with 

 the necessity of elaborate notice. 



