the Ichthyolof/y of Australia. 493 



Megalops SETiPiNNis, Forstcr's Megalops. 



Cliipea sctipiivia,Forster, fig. 242. Banks. Biblioth. (A reference to Clu- 

 pea ci/prinoicles, Brouss., is added to the fig. by Dryander.) 



No. o, Mr. Gilbert's list. 



Mr. Gilbert informs us that this fish is named the " fresh- 

 Avater herring" by the settlers at Port Essington, and " ur- 

 roree" by the natives. It inhabits all the freshwater streams, 

 swamps and lakes of Cobourg Peninsula, and may be taken 

 readily with a hook and line. In the latter end of the dry 

 season, when the waters have become shallow, it is caught in 

 great numbers in clap-nets by the Aborigines ; and when the 

 swamps have altogether dried up, this fish is found living in 

 the mud at the depth of several feet, where it remains until 

 the ponds fill again ; then it reappears in multitudes and of 

 full size, although the mud may be covered merely by u few 

 inches of water. It is an indifferent acquisition to the table, 

 being not only full of bones like the English herring, but soft 

 as if putrid, however early it may be cooked after it is caught. 



The Bauksian library contains a pencil sketch made by 

 Forster of a fish taken by him in a freshwater pond on the 

 island of Tanna in August 1774, which is a tolerable represen- 

 tation of the form of our fish*. Broussonnet confounds For- 

 ster's fish with Bloch's Clupea cyprinoides, a native of the 

 Caribbean Sea, noticing however the ditference of the fin-rays 

 in Forster's and Bloch's specimens. He mentions the habit 

 the fish has of burying itself in the mud. The xVtlantic and 

 the Pacific species are again confounded in Schneider's 

 posthumous edition of Bloch under the name of Clupea 

 thrissoides (p. 424), and in quoting the numbers of the rays 

 from Broussonnet, Forster's name is transposed and placed 

 against the rays of Bloch's species. The Megalope filamenteux 

 (Lacep. V. pi. 13. f. 3, Russell, 203), which is stated in the 

 * Regne Animal' to have sixteen rays in the dorsal, has a 

 smaller eye with a larger space between it and the edge of 

 the intermaxillaries, and also larger fins, especially pectorals, 

 than setipinnis. xVlthougli the term setipinnis refers more to a 

 generic character than to a specific distinction, I do not think 

 myself authorized to change it. 



The profile of Mr. Gilbert's specimen is a pretty regular and ele- 

 gant ellipse, whose vertical diameter at the ventrals is equal to one- 

 fourth of the axis from the snout to the extremity of the central 

 caudal rays. The caudal is deeply forked. The length of the head, 

 measured to the extreme edge of the gill-cover, is exactly equal to 



* The size of the eye and shortness of the snout correspond with Mr. Gil- 

 bert's specimen, but the dorsal is placed too far forward, probably from in- 

 advertence. 



