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being deposited or while being removed. Neither will the effluent 

 sewage be as offensive as the tar allowed to escape from the gas 

 works. Tar will not mix with water but floats on the surface, and is 

 carried wherever the winds take it, whereas sewage is carried only by 

 the current, and within a short distance from the outlet it will be 

 mixed with and form part of the general mass of water. Certainly 

 steps ought to be taken to keep tar and ammoaiaeal liquors out of 

 the estuary or they will destroy the fisheries. As to the effect of 

 sewage upon the fisheries let me finish by quoting again from the 

 Lancet of the 12th June : — " Finally, when the throwing of the 

 sewage into the sea is stigmatised as a ridiculous waste, the 

 arguments of Sir J. B. Lawes, as to the cultivation of the fish supply 

 must not be left out of consideration. According to that distinguished 

 authority, the sea harvest derived from the discharge of sewage into 

 an estuary may sometimes be more valuable than any possible land 

 harvest. " 



Mr. W. Saville-Rent, F.L.S..F. Z.S. contributed two papers. 1. On 

 a suspected hybrid species of Trumpeter, and upon other rare fish taken 

 ln Tasmanian waters. 2. Note upon the occurrence of the Sydney 

 Crawfish, Palinurus hilgellii, on the coast of Tasmania. 



In the first paper an account was given of an unfamiliar variety of 

 Trumpeter that had been captured by the fishermen on the east coast, 

 and that had been kept alive for some time in one of the tidal ponds of 

 the Fisheries' establishment. While the general colour, a distribution 

 °i the markings on the body, corresponded closely with those of the 

 ordinary Silver Bastard Trumpeter, Latris Fosteri, the general contour 

 and the greater portion of the structural details agreed more nearly 

 w ith those of the Real Trumpeter, Latris hecateia. Compared with 

 that species, it coincided in the possession of 17 rays to the anterior 

 or spinous portion of the dorsal fin, in the number of scales, 

 110, developed in the lateral line, and in the presence of teeth upon the 

 vomer, though these were fewer in number than are found in the last- 

 Darned species. In the Common or Silver Bastard Trumpeter there are 

 °hly 16 spinous rays to the anterior division of the dorsal fin, the scales 

 along the lateral vary from 115 to 120, and there were no teeth what- 

 ever upon the vomer. A comparison made with the structural formation 

 °f the New South Wales or New Zealand Trumpeter, Latris ciliaris, 

 demonstrated that the specimen was more nearly allied to Latris 

 hecateia than to that species, though at the same time it could not be 

 precisely identified with any of the. species of the Trumpeter genus 

 hitherto recorded. Taking into account the occurrence of the 

 specimen described as an exceptional example, and giving full 

 Value to the remarkable manner in which it combined the 

 c haracteristics of both the Real and Silver Bastard Trumpeters, the 

 author of the paper was inclined to regard it as an accidental hybrid 

 between those two species. Support to such an interpretation was 

 afforded by the known parallel eases of hybridism that naturally occur 

 ° r may be brought about by artificial means among species of 

 ^altnonidse. The greatest obstacle to the interpretation was associated 

 With the character of the dentition, there being only two teeth 

 ln the vomer in the case of the supposed hybrid form 

 compared with a group of six or eight found in the Real Trumpeter. 

 Should further investigations satisfy iethyologists that the two-toothed 

 Variety of the genus Latris represented a new and independent species, 

 *t was proposed to distinguish it by the title of Latris Mortoni. The 

 se co n(1 fish described was a representative of the family Blennildfe, 

 ar >d referable to the genus Olinas, of which one species only C. 

 "•fspicillatus, has been recorded as inhabiting Tasmanian waters, 

 species is a fish 4 or Sin. long, commonly found in rock pools at 



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