PankkR.—On a Torpedo recently caught near Dunedin. 281 
jaws, very oblique, the points being turned outwards; several strong den- 
ticulations on each side of the principal point. No membrana nictitans. 
Spiracles small; gill-openings of moderate width. 
* Echinorhinus spinosus. 
** Spiracles behind the eye, behind the vertical from the angle of the 
mouth. Teeth M. Dorsal fins close together. Each tubercle with a 
small spine in the centre. Brownish-violet, with or without dark spots.” 
Arr. XIX.—On a Torpedo (T. fusca, ? n. sp.) recently caught near Dunedin. 
By T. Jurrery Parker, B. Sc. Lond., Professor of Biology in the 
University of Otago. 
[Read before the Otago Institute, 7th May, 1883.] 
Plate XXII ; 
Tue specimen upon which the following description is founded was caught 
at Purakanui, Otago, towards the end of last year. As far as I know it is 
only the second example of the genus which has been recorded in New 
Zealand,* the other having been caught at Napier, in 1868, by Captain 
Fairchild, and named by Professor Hutton} Torpedo fairchildi. 
The present specimen agrees in most respects with T. hebetans,} of 
which 1 should be disposed to consider it a variety, but for the fact that 
it differs from that species in at least one character considered by Giinther 
to be of specific importance. I therefore propose to name it provisionally 
T. fusca. 
The species of Torpedo are divided by Günther into two groups, contain- 
ing respectively those with fringed and those with unfringed spiracles. My 
specimen belongs to the latter subdivision, in which only two species, 7. 
hebetans, and T. narce, are included in the ‘ Catalogue of Fishes.” A query 
is, however, placed against T. emarginata of MeQCoy,|| indicating that its 
position as a synonym of T. hebetans is doubtful. Hutton's T. fairchildi has 
also unfringed spiracles, and it is apparently the only new species of Torpedo 
which has been recorded since the publication of the ** Catalogue of Fishes.” 
* Since this paper was written, two specimens of Torpedo have been caught in Napier 
Harbour, but the description of them (N.Z. Journ. of Sci., July, 1883) is not sufficiently 
exact to allow of their identification. 
t Hutton and Hector, Catalogue of N.Z. Fishes, 1872. $ 
1 Günther, Catalogue of Fishes, viii., p. 449. 
Ann, and Mag. Nat. Hist., 1841. 
