52 LORD HOWE ISLAND. 



PISHES. 



The present catalogue of the Pishes of Lord Howe Island is as complete as 

 the means at my disposal allow, having been compiled from the following 

 sources : — (i) The British Museum Catalogue of Fishes, 1859-70, by Dr. Albert 

 G-iinther, who however appears to have been acquainted with a single 

 species only, and that of very doubtful authenticity ; (ii) specimens collected 

 by Captain Armstrong, late Resident Magistrate of the island, and forwarded 

 by him to the Museum ; (iii) a collection made by Mr. A. Morton ; (iv) a 

 fish presented to the Hon. Win. Macleay by the late Mr. H. T. Wilkinson, 

 at that time the Visiting Magistrate, and which is undoubtedly the most 

 interesting of the entire collection, as proving the existence of the genus 

 Tetragonurus in the southern hemisphere, while the species itself is absolutely 

 identical with Lowe's Atlantic species* ; (v) Pishes presented to the Museum 

 from time to time by Mr. Langley ; (vi) specimens in the Macleay Collec- 

 tion at Elizabeth Bay, and kindly placed at my disposal by the owner ; 

 (vii) the collection formed by Messrs. U. Etheridge, jun., T. Whitelegge, 

 and J. Thorpe ; and (viii) the specimens obtained by Mr. E. H. Saunders. 

 The two latter collections, the first of which was specially organized and 

 equipped by the Australian Museum, yielded by far the most important 

 results, and added greatly to our knowledge of the Biology and Palaeontology 

 of this interesting oceanic islet. 



It is unfortunately out of my power to give any definite account of the 

 Palaeichthyan fishes of the island, but from information elicited from Messrs. 

 Etheridge, Langley, and Saunders, I am convinced that Galeocerdo rayneri, 

 and Carcharodon rondeletii will prove to be the most abundant of the large 

 sharks. 



The number of species included in the present list is eighty-eight, five of 

 which, a Petroscirtes, a Lotella, a Pseudoscarus, a JBalistes, and a Gobioides, 

 are ir recognizable owing to the bad condition in which they now are. Of the 

 remaining eighty-three species fourteen are described as new, one of which 

 belongs to a new genus of deep-sea fishes (Sternoptychidce) ; these are as 

 follows : — Apogon chrysurus, Chcetodon aphrodite, Haplodactylus etheridgii, 

 Cirrhitichthys splendens, Pempheris unioini, Gobius ceolosoma, Pomacentrus 

 fasciolatus, Glypliidodon poly acanthus, Anampses elegans, A. variolatus, Solea 

 ramsaii Sternoptychides dentata, Monacanthus hoivensis, and Tetrodon callis- 

 temus ; while of the sixty-nine species then left, no less than twenty-one 

 are here recorded for the first time from Australian waters. These are as 

 follows : — Anthias cichlops, Scorpama cooki, Plesiops nigricans, Salarias 

 variolosus, S. marmoratus, S. quadricornis, Acanthoclinus littoreus, Cossyphas 

 atrolumbus, Labroides paradisfus, Anampses twisti, Stethojulis axillaris, 

 Platyqlossus pseudominiatus, P. trimaculatus, Julis lunaris, J. trilobata, 

 Saurus varius, Exoccctus dovi, Sprattelloides gracilis, Congromura?na mellissi, 

 Ostracion fomasini, and Tetrodon valentini. Of the remaining forty-eight 

 species, one of which, Serranus ouatalibi, has a very doubtful record, thirteen 

 only have been recorded from New Zealand, of which number eleven are 

 also known from the Australian coast ; it therefore follows that so far as 

 the fishes are concerned the fauna is strictly Australian, only two species, 

 Acanthoclinus littoreus and Ostracion fomasini, having been recorded from 

 New Zealand, and not from Australian seas, while the former was, previous 



* See the paper " On the genus Tetragonvrus," by Dr. Ramsay and the author, 

 published in the Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. Waies, in (2), 1888, p. 9. 



