Clakke. — Description of new Species of Trachypterus. 195 



Colour (in spirit) uniform brown, with a bright silver patch on the oper- 

 cles and expanded maxillaries. 



Locality. — Waimarama, East Coast, Welhngton. Collected byE. Mein- 

 ertzhagen, Esq., and entrusted to me for description by Professor von 

 Haast, F.E.S. 



This remarkable little fish is closely allied to a form from the Falkland 

 Islands, described by the Eev. L. Jenyns, in " Zoology of the Voyage of 

 H.M.S. Beagle," under the generic name oi Ilnoccetes, which he places with 

 the Blennidas. Dr. Giinther has however removed that fish to the genus 

 Ly codes, which he places with the Gadidas, or cod-tribe of soft-rayed fishes. 

 The fish now described, although possessing characters sufficient to require 

 a separate genus, clearly supports the systematic position assigned to the 

 LycocUdcE by Giinther. 



Art. XXI. — Description of a new Species of Trachypterus. — By F. E. Claeke. 



[Bead hefore the Westland Institute, lltli August, 1880.] 

 The fish I have the pleasure of bringing under your notice this evening is 

 doubly interesting, not only on account of its being a new species of a rare 

 genus — a genus which (as far as I am at present able to discover) has, as 

 yet, been represented in the seas of the southern hemisphere by one speci- 

 men only,* which was captured near Valparaiso, and is now, according to 

 Dr. Albt. Giinther, in the Vienna Museum ; — but also from its having been 

 taken in a living state and existing some short time in captivity. This has 

 enabled us to obtain a perfect specimen of a genus notable for the excessive 

 fragility of its members, so much so, that I think I can safely say it is 

 " the most perfect " specimen yet procured, and thus possesses one or two dis- 

 tinctive points as yet undescribed or unnoticed in other members of its genus, 

 but which, at the same time, I may add, do not seem to entitle its classifica- 

 tion as a new genus — as these peculiarities may only obtain from its not 

 having reached an adult state — although other members of the genus almost 

 as small (from the Mediterranean and around Madeira) have been described. 

 To give some idea as to the general occurrence and condition of these 

 rare fish, I cannot do better than extract in full Dr. Glinther's description 

 of habitat, eto.,f of the family Trachypteridse, to one of the genera of 

 which family the fish now under your observation belongs: — "Deep-sea 

 fishes, found at present on the shores of the Atlantic and Mediterranean, 

 one species in the East Indies, another on the West Coast of South 

 America, a third from New Zealand. Probably they have a wider range, 

 but their being so rarely thrown on shore, and their speedy decomposi- 



* [The author has overlooked the occurrence of another specimen of this species, T. 

 altivelis, Kner. (Hutton in " Trans. N.Z. Inst.," Vol. V., p. 264), in the Auckland Museum ; 

 and other specimens, since collected, are in the Wellington and Dunedin Museums. — Ed.] 

 f Cat. Fish. Brit. Mus., Vol. IH., p. 300. 



