CONTRIBUTION 



TO THE 



ICHTHYOLOGY OF AUSTRALIA. 



BY 



COUNT E. DE CASTELNAU. 



No. I.— THE MELBOURNE EISH MAEKET. 



My intention is, if circumstances allow me, to submit to the 

 public a succession of papers on the fishes of Australia. This 

 first one is devoted to the description of the different sorts I 

 have observed at Melbourne, alive or in a fresh state, during more 

 than a year, and which almost all come from the Eish Market. 

 The number of sorts (142) is very limited, compared with what 

 could be collected during the same period in other countries, 

 such as India or South America ; but, if many of the South 

 Australian forms indicate their habitat in a semi-tropical climate, 

 the diversity of species is not so great as in most regions equally 

 situated. This seems to be the rule with the Antarctic Seas, as 

 at the Cape of Good Hope, after several years' researches, I 

 could only obtain 157 sorts (with ossified skeletons or Teleostei, 

 G-unther), many of which came from distant parts, such as Lake 

 N 'garni, Natal, &c. Since then, many sorts have been indicated 

 as from South Africa, and their number is so considerable in the 

 Catalogues of the British Museum as to make me, in many cases, 

 doubt of the exactness of the assigned locality. All the fishes of 

 Sir A. Smith's collection have been inscribed as coming from the 

 Cape sea. while I believe that many were obtained at very distant 



