PISCES 235 
Family TRICHIURIDA. 
THYRSITES Cuvier, 1829. 
THYRSITES ATUN Euphrasen. 
BARRACOUTA. 
Scomber atun Euphrasen, K. Vetensk. Acad. Nya Handl. xii.. 
NID Says oils: 
Thyrsites atun Cuv. and Val., Hist. Nat. Poiss. viii., 1831, p. 196, 
pl: cextx. 
suations. 2, 6; 95 Ti 12, 13, 15, 17, 18,719, 20, 25, 26, 28, 34 35, 
36, 38, 39, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 58, 60, 63, 64, 65, 71, 
81, 83, 85, 86, 88, 94. 
This species, known from South African and Southern Aus- 
tralasian Seas is very common all round the coasts of New 
Zealand. Goode and Bean state that it is undoubtedly a 
deep-water form. This however is not so, or, at any rate, if 
found in really deep water, it is not confined to the depths. It 
was taken by the trawler from Stewart Island to the Bay of 
Plenty and at all depths from 10 to 105 fathoms. 
Specimens netted at Station 20 had their stomachs crowded 
with the fish Hemerocoetes acanthorhynchus. 
REXEA Waite, 1911. 
Body moderately elongate, fusiform; mouth large with a 
single row of dagger-like teeth in each jaw: three enormous 
fangs towards the front of the upper jaw and two smaller ones 
in the lower jaw: teeth on palatines, none on the tongue. Two 
contiguous dorsal fins, the spinous portion in a sheath, two finlets 
above and below; pectorals small and low, ventrals small, each 
with four spines, caudal forked, peduncle without keel, scales 
small and smooth, lateral line single anteriorly but dividing 
forms an upper and lower branch. 
This genus is near to Promethichthys Gill (?Dicrotus 
Giinther) differing principally in the character of the ventral 
fins and in the configuration of the lateral line. It includes, 
as the type of the genus, the species described below, also 
Thyrsites promethoides*? Bleeker T. micropus MceCoy*? and 
possibly 7. (Promethichthys) bengalensis Aleock.t* (See dis- 
cussion below). 
(42) Bleeker, Act. Soc. Sc. Indo-Nederl. I. Amboina, p. 42 (vide Giinth). 
(43) McCoy, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (4) xi. 1873, p. 338. 
(44) Alcock, Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, lxiii. 1894, p. 117, pl. vi., fig. 1. 
