264 WAITE 
be said that this undertaking is not the result of the work per- 
formed by the expedition, but it is at least significant that in 
the official report particular stress was laid upon the plenitude 
of fish at the Chatham Islands, and it was stated that ‘‘it is 
extremely probable that the Chatham Islands will in the near 
future become one of the most important sources of our fish- 
supply.’’ In any ease, this does not alter the fact, as stated in 
the public press, that the fish is not being consumed at our own 
tables. 
Though the trawl is a selective instrument of capture, taking, 
as a general rule, only those animals living on or near the floor 
of the ocean, it secures most of the organisms within scope of 
its area of operations. It will be evident therefore, that though 
it will capture the food fishes which it encounters, it will also 
secure other fishes and other forms of animal life outside the 
limitations officially imposed on the undertaking. The present 
report is therefore another though indirect product of the 
expedition. It may be regarded as supplementary to the official 
report, dealing largely with a study of the products outside the 
official cognisance. At the same time the economic fishes have 
been treated more liberally than other forms, so that it may 
appeal to popular as well as to more purely scholastic circles. 
The species have been dealt with in the exact manner that 
science demands, the result being the recognition of many more, 
even economic species, than are enumerated in the official report. 
The total number of fishes included is eighty-five of which 
eleven are described as new to science, some of these have been 
previously associated with Australian or other species, but are 
now found to be different. Others, though known elsewhere, are 
now recognised for the first time as belonging to the New 
Zealand fauna. 
Though no attempt has been made to revise the synonomy of 
all the species included in the report, special attention has been 
devoted to the flatfishes, and with the aid of the synopsis 
supplied and the accompanying illustrations, there should now 
be small difficulty in identifying the several species of this 
family at present known from New Zealand seas. <A glance at 
this portion of the report will show how very involved the 
literature of the subject is, as applied to New Zealand species, 
and suggests that a thorough revision of the whole of our fishes 
is necessary. 
The records show that, as would naturally be expected with 
our extensive seaboard, fish is numerous and varied, but as the 
area between the extreme points of the Dominion stretches 
through thirteen degrees of latitude the range of water 
temperature, difference of food supply and other conditions 
