Dr. A. Giinther on Australian Fishes. 237 



prevented me from adopting Professor Owen's view as to the 

 generic affinity of this fish, which I thought, in the absence 

 of specimens preserved entire, would prove to be rather with 

 the Murray cod, OUgoms ; and thus the fish appeared in 

 nearly all subsequent publications as OUgoms gigas. Cas- 

 telnau, however ('Notes on the Edible Fishes of Victoria,' 

 1873, p. 8, and Proc. Zool. Soc. Vict. ii. 1873, p. 151), pro- 

 posed to form a new genus for it, Hectoria^ " on account of 

 its armed tongue, double-pointed operculum, &c." 



In more recent years the same fish has been found far from 

 the place of its first discovery, viz. off the island of Juan Fer- 

 nandez, and described by Steindachner as Polyprion Kneri 

 (Sitzungsb, Wien. Acad. Ixxi. p. 443) ; also the ' Challenger ' 

 obtained it off the same island (Chall. Shore Fish. p. 24). 



Finally, the British Museum obtained from the Fisheries 

 and Indo-Colonial Exhibitions specimens (in spirit as well as 

 mounted) from New Zealand and Juan Fernandez * ; and a 

 direct comparison of these specimens can leave no doubt that 

 all belong to the same species, which is antipodal to the only 

 other species known, Polyprion cernium. 



Lowe (Fish. Madeira, p. 185) has shown that P. cernium 

 is a deep-sea fish, swimming near the surface when young, 

 but living habitually at a depth of 300 and more fathoms 

 when adult. The wide range of this genus is therefore not 

 surprising ; in fact we may well expect that P. cernium will 

 be met with far beyond the limits of the north-eastern 

 Atlantic. 



XXVII. — On Australian Fishes of the Genus Beryx. 

 By Dr. A. Gunthee, F.R.S. 



The British Museum has recently acquired, in a collection of 

 fish from Adelaide, a fine specimen of Beryx^ which, although 

 closely allied to Beryx affinis, is clearly specifically distinct 

 from it, differing somewhat in the fin-formula, in the size of 

 the scales, and especially in the form of the nostrils and the 

 sculpture of the opercles and of the upperside of the head. It 

 may be named 



* Those exhibited by the Chilian Government, and presented bv them 

 to the British Museum, bore the MS. name "Percafernandexia7ia. 



