March, igo6.] 



KNOWLEDGE & SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



379 



Rare Living Animals 

 in London. 



By ]'. L. ScLATER, Dr.Sc, F.R.S. 



VI.— Forster's Lung- Fish {Ceratodus forsttvi). 



A "queer ush " i;i a proA ciliial expression, and is 

 certainly very applicable to- the fish now figured from 

 one of two specimens received by the Zoolog-ical 

 Society in 1898, and still living- in one of the large 

 tanks in the reptile house. 



For many years there had been know-n from the 

 Triassic strata of various parts of Europe, certain fos- 



of them in the " Proceedings " of the Zoological 

 Society, under the name Ceratodus fcrsieri (see 

 1^. Z. S., 1870, p. 221). He referred them, no doubt 

 correctly, to the genus Ceratodus, by which name 

 Agassiz had designated similar teeth in his 

 " Recherches sur les Poissons I^ossiles." 



The Barramondi is, in these days, found in a state 

 of nature, only in two little rivers of Queensland, the 

 " Burnett " and the " Mary," though its fossil remains 

 prove that it formerly extended over a far larger por- 

 tion of Australia. 'Phe best account of its life and 

 habits will be found in Dr. Richard Semon's most in- 

 teresting work " Itn .\ustralischen Busch," of which 

 an Eng-lish translation was published in London in 



Forster's Lung- Fish {C<'nito<h(s farstiii). 



sil \vv\U of fishes of a. remarkable character. Prom 

 their fancied resemblance to' deer-anllers these teeth, 

 which were the only part of the fish known, were 

 named Ceratodus, or " Horn-tooth." Similar teeth 

 were sub.sequently obtained from the secondary strata 

 of India, and from the Jurassic rocks of Colorado and 

 Mnnl.'uia, in North .America, but little, if any, ad- 

 (litiim.il information alxiut them was procured. .Sud- 

 denly, in 1870, the extraordinary discovery was made 

 Ihat this " queer fish," or, at any rate, one with similar 

 lii'lh, was actually still existing in certain rivers of 

 Out'cnslaiid. where it is known to the natixcs as the 

 " l!an anil null. " 



1 he n.ilui alisl who liisl luade known this icinaikabic 

 lact, was the lale Gerard KreiTt, a correspoiuling moni- 

 ber of the Zoological .Society of London, and for manv 

 years curator and .sccret.ny of the .Vustralian Museum, 

 Sydney. Krefft had obtained bis specimens from Mr. 

 \ViIliam Porster, M.C.V., and published a description 



1899. The same author has likewise devoted a whole 

 volume of his "" Zoologischc Por.schungsreisen," to a 

 monograph of this extraordinary fish. 



The first, and, as I believe, the only specimens of the 

 Ceratodus ever brought to Kurope alive, were received 

 at the Zoological Society's Ciardens in June, 1898. 

 l-'our of these lishes, captured in the River .Mary, were 

 safelv conveved to haigland by Mr. D. O'Connor. Two 

 of them were purchased by the Zoological Society, for 

 the sum of ;£,45, and, a.s already stated, are still living 

 in the (lardens — much increased in size and condition. 

 The two others were taken by Mr. O'Connor to Paris 

 • ind -did, 1 believe, to the Jardin des Planles. 1 do not 

 kn(vw whether thev are still alive or not. 



Mr. O'ConncK- gave the Zoological Society the fol- 

 lowing account of the capture of his specimens of the 

 Ceratodus : — 



" Some ten or twelve years ago, the late Sir 

 l""erdinand von .Mueller and other scientific men of 



