540 MR. G. A. BOULENGER ON [Dec. 7, 
The examples from which this species is described measure 
respectively 25°10, 26°10, and 28°30 inches, and were all taken in 
Port Jackson, where this species is locally known as the “Drummer” ’. 
I have never seen a small specimen of this fish. 
Breeding: ouly one, the largest of my specimens, showed any 
signs of breeding ; this was a male with the milt but little developed ; 
all three were taken during the month of August. 
As food: not held in any estimation, and commanding no sale in 
the market, nevertheless it is, in my opinion, quite equal to the other 
herbivorous Sparoids. 
Habits: in these it is a true rock-fish, dwelling in the crevices 
and indentations of our rocky shores, where it finds abundant food 
and shelter; it is not given to roaming, and is only taken by the 
trammel, one end of which is attached to the shore, against which 
the mesh must actually lie, or else the fish would assuredly pass 
inside, whence it happens that this species is almost always caught 
within a few feet of the shore. 
Note.—From Dr. Ramsay’s MS. notes on Australian Fishes, I 
find that, so far back as 1881, he noticed these differences with regard 
to the dentition, but never published any communication thereon. 
5. On the South-African Tortoises allied to Testudo 
geometrica. By G. A. BouLencrER. 
[Received November 2, 1886. ] 
(Plates LVII. & LVIII.) 
Upon the suggestion of the Rev. Mr. Fisk, of Cape Town, who 
has enriched the Society’s Menagerie with so many interesting 
Reptiles, I have undertaken a reexamination of the South-African 
Tortoises allied to Testudo geometrica, and am able to distinguish 
as many as seven well-marked species, of which the diagnoses follow. 
The specimens named 7. ¢rimeni, after the Director of the South- 
African Museum, and 7’, fiski, were lately exhibited in the Society’s 
Gardens, and were unrepresented in the Natural History Museum. 
That named 7’. smithi, after the author of the ‘Illustrations of 
South-African Zoology,’ is established on a specimen erroneously 
referred by Gray to 7. verreauaii. The true 7’. verreaucii being still 
unrepresented in our collections, its diagnosis is compiled from Smith’s 
description and figure. 
1 Tt shares the name with Girella elevata, Macleay, and Pachymetopon grande, 
Giinth. In the ‘ Annals and Magazine of Natural History’ for November 1886, 
Dr. Giinther described Pimelepterus, sydneyanus, nu. sp., from Port Jackson, and 
suggested that Pachymetopon grande (Cat. Austr. Fish. i. p. 106) may be Pime- 
lepterus fuscus, Lacépéde, and that Pachymetopon squamosum, Macleay and 
Alleyne (Proc. Linn. N.S. Wales, i. p. 275, pl. ix. f. 1), may be Pimelepterus 
cinerascens, Forsk,, or P. tahmel, Rippell. 
