146 Observations on the Saw Fish. 



and these are succeeded by others, in which the threads begin 

 to collect into nets (Hydrodietgon), like the example before 

 you. 



This simple plant shows no distinction between leaf and 

 stem and is also destitute of flowers. The fucoidae characterize 

 the lowest zone of animal life, that it is to say, where these 

 plants are found, are also to be detected the animals at the 

 lowest range of the Zoological kingdom. If you, therefore, 

 take into consideration that the Graptolite, a kind of Zoophyte, 

 exists in abundance near Keilor, you will not for a moment 

 doubt that our strata belong to the oldest neptunic era of 

 the world, and were deposited in the ancient marine beds 

 which have been subsequently upheaved by internal volcanic 

 action, forming here the cambrian or lowest silurian formation 

 of Victoria* 



Art. XVIII. — Observations on the Saw Fish. 

 By Thomas E. Rawlinsojst, Esq., C.E. 



[Read before the Institute, 11th November, 1857.] 



I beg to submit for the consideration of the members of this 

 Institute a brief description of a saw-fish and young taken in the 

 Port Phillip waters. 



This is no new discovery with which to startle you, and to 

 the professed naturalist is perhaps no great novelty. Yet I 

 have ventured to submit to you the few facts of which I have 

 become possessed, in the hope, that such may be at least interest- 

 ing to the many, and useful as a memorandum to the naturalist 

 in his more abstruse and elaborate researches. 



The fish, which is the subject of this notice, is that generally 

 known as the saw-fish, from the peculiar saw like snout with 

 which the fish is armed Naturalists class it in the Ray family, 

 although in external appearance it more nearly resembles the 

 shark tribe. Some of the saw-fishes have been known to attain 

 the length of from 12 to 15 feet. 



This specimen taken in Hobson's Bay was, however, only 3 feet 

 6 inches in length from the end of the snout to the extreme end 

 of its tail. Of this the snout occupied nine inches, being two and a 

 half inches wide at the base, and tapering to one half inch in width 

 at the extremity, whilst its thickness was inconsiderable. Along 



* Vide Transactions Philosophical Society, 1855, p. 228, " On the Primary 

 Upheaval of the Land round Melbourne, &c." By this Author. 



