PISCES 187 
BERYCOMORPHI. 
Family BERYCIDA. 
PARATRACHICHTHYS Waite, 1899. 
PARATRACHICHTHYS TRAILLI Hutton. 
Trachichthys trailli Hutton, T.N.Z.I. viii. 1876, p. 212. Giinther 
Chall. Rep. xxii., 1887, p. 23, pl. lv., fig. a. 
Paratrachichthys trailli Waite, Mem. Aust. Mus. iv., 1899, p. 65. 
Station 77. 
Bava: welds Ae ii) 10> Vo abe eet C19) 2 15, 
Five examples of this species were taken at Station 77, this 
being the only occasion on which the fish was secured. The 
position was about five miles off the mouth of the Aohanga 
River, between Castle Point and Cape Turnagain, south of 
Hawke Bay. The depth was 20 to 23 fathoms and the bottom 
sand and mud. The largest specimen secured measures 212 mm. 
in length, and the life colours are very striking, the body being 
purple and all the fins red. 
Reporting on the only specimen taken by the ‘‘Thetis’’ 
expedition, I mentioned that it differed from the description of 
the type by having thirteen in place of eleven abdominal scutes. 
Giinther, who also found the scutes to number eleven, had three 
examples, but strangely only notes the anal peculiarity in one 
specimen, writing:—‘‘The specimen from Otago shows a very 
extraordinary and probably abnormal position of the vent, which 
is placed between the ventral fins.’’ The series to hand enables 
me to ascertain that the number of abdominal scutes is variable ; 
of six specimens examined, including one taken off Wellington, 
I find the following characters:—One has ten scutes only, one 
has twelve and four have thirteen, also three specimens only 
possess the two anterior spines mentioned in my notice of the 
New South Wales specimen. 
A second species of the genus (P. prosthemius) Jordan and 
Fowler!’ has been described from Japan. 
(18) Jordan and Fowler, Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. xxvi. 1902, p. 9, fig. 1. 
