54 



OLIGOEUS MA.CQUABIENSIS. 



Grystes macquariensis, Guv. Sf Vol., Richard. 



brisbanii, Les. (Voy. de la Goquille). 



— - peelii, Mitchell (Exped. Austral.) 



(Murray God.) 



This fish is very plentiful in the Murray and in most of the 

 rivers of New South Wales. The young ones are much more 

 slender and elongated than the adult or old ones. It attains to 

 a very large size, and is frequently over two feet long. I have 

 seen one about three and a-half feet, and which was said to 

 weigh over one hundred pounds. 



Blandowski says that the Murray God forms the principal 

 article of food of the natives who reside on the banks of the 

 interior rivers. In winter, when the rivers overflow their banks, 

 the natives spear them at night by fire light, while they are sleep- 

 ing behind old logs. In the warm season, when the rivers are low 

 or cease altogether to run, they spear them very easily. To do 

 this they dive, head foremost, to the bottom of the river. It has 

 been introduced into the Tarra by the Acclimatisation Society. 



I find in all the authors that the dorsal fin is formed of four- 

 teen soft rays ; but this is not the case with any of the numerous 

 specimens I have examined, and I find that some have fifteen, 

 but most sixteen. Their colour is subject to considerable varia- 

 tions ; it is generally of a dirty yellow green, becoming white 

 on the belly ; the upper parts covered with small, numerous, 

 and irregular dark green spots, which often take the appear- 

 ance of very irregular transverse lines. On the sides of the 

 head and of the the operculum these lines are frequently well 

 defined, and longitudinal. The fins are purple, with more or 

 less of a scarlet hue. 



The fishermen of the Murray and G-oulburn, where this sort is 

 very plentiful, send it to Echuca, from whence it is put alive into 

 baskets. In dying by asphyxia, the body often becomes, in parts, 

 of a splendid scarlet, and sometimes this tinge shows the impres- 

 sion of the wickers of which the baskets are made ; this is par- 

 ticularly the case with those specimens which are on the bottom 

 of the baskets. 



