150 FISH GALLERY. 



After the wholesale destruction of 1882 it was feared that the 

 Tile-fish had become extinct, but in recent years (since 1892) 

 specimens have been caught in fair numbers at the usual depths 

 of 70 or more fathoms and in the original district, namely around 

 40° N. lat. and 72° W. long. This history of the destruction of 

 the Tile-fish is important as being one of the very few cases in 

 which we know of the almost complete destruction of a species by 

 natural causes — that is to say without the intervention of man as a 

 hunter or as a carrier of disease. 

 Band-fish. Resembling the last family in the feebleness of the spines, of 

 which there are only three in the dorsal and one in the anal fin, 

 are the Cepolidse or Band-fishes, e. g. the Cepola rubescens, 556, 

 a fish common in the Mediterranean and sometimes taken on the 

 British coasts. It grows to about 18 or 20 inches, and is of a 

 bright red colour. The body is long and band-like, reminding 

 one of the Ribbon-fishes (Wall-case 19), with which at one time 

 the Cepolidse were classed. The dorsal and anal fins extend 

 nearly the whole length of the body. 



The Hoplognathidse of the coasts of Australia, Japan, and Peru, 

 with the single genus Hoplognathus (557), have the spinous portion 

 of the dorsal fin well developed ; the body is compressed laterally 

 and covered with very small ctenoid scales. The chief dis- 

 tinguishing feature is the coalesence of the teeth to form a kind 

 of beak with a sharp edge. The Sillaginidse, another small family 

 with a single genus, Sillago, are small fishes related to the 

 Meagres of the next family, the Scisenidse, from which they differ 

 in the greater length of the base of the anal fin and the presence 

 of teeth on the vomerine bone. There is a separate spinous 

 dorsal fin, but it is short-based, as compared with the soft dorsal. 

 Sillago ciliata, 559, is known as the " Whiting " in Australia, 

 where the true Whiting (Gadus merlangus, 479, Wall-case 11), a 

 fish of northern distribution, does not occur. The misapplication 

 Names °f popular names in the colonies is due to the early settlers, who, 

 coming across an animal new to them, had only three courses open 

 to them, to accept the name by which it was known to the natives, 

 to invent a new name for themselves, or to apply the nearest or 

 least inappropriate name already existing in their vocabulary, and 

 in almost all cases they preferred to follow the last course. Thus, 

 they called the birds Sparrows and Robins and Thrushes, and the 



