38 " THETIS " SCIENTIFIC RESULTS. 



Cape Hawke and Crowdy Head. The former is the most northern.' 

 point at which the species has been taken on our coast. For the 

 most part the specimens were small, but a few really large 

 examples were netted^ chiefly females; nearly all these gave birth 

 to many living young while on deck. While some of the young 

 ones were of uniform tint, either grey or brown, others were 

 mottled and spotted in a very pretty manner, the markings being, 

 brighter and more defined than in any of the adults. 



Family RHINO BATID^. 



R H I N B A T U S, Block (b Schneider. 



RHINOBATUS BANKSII, imier <& Henle. 



Shovel-nosed Ray. 



(Plate iii.) 



Rhinohatus hctnksii, Miill. k Henle, Plagiost., 1838, pp. 123 and 

 192. 



Stations 1, 10, 11, 22, 24, 25, 26, 32, 51, 59. 



In his " Notes on the distribution of some Australian Sharks 

 and Rays," Ogilby* identified our common Shovel-nosed Ray 

 with Rhinohatus hougainvillii, remarking: — "This is the common 

 Rhinohatus of the New South Wales coast, and is found at least 

 as far north as Cape York." He has since mentioned to me that 

 our species more nearly agrees with the description of R. hanksii, 

 Miill. ik Henle, an opinion in which I concur. The authors of 

 this species state that the description is from a drawing (zeich- 

 nung) by Banks in the British Museum, while they give its 

 synonymy as ''Raja 7-ostrata, Banks, M.S. 45." It is scarcely 

 clear therefore whether the description supplied is from Banks' 

 M.S. or a drawing only. The habitat of R. hougainvillii is 

 unknown, while that of R. hanksii is rendered as New Hol- 

 land. 



In order to better establish the species, I have supplied both a 

 description and figure from examples collected. We took it off 

 Cape Hawke (Station 32), thence southward to Shoalhaven Bight 

 (Station 51) and vertically from 10 to 48 fathoms. 



* Ogilby— Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., x., 1886, p. 4C4. 



