107 



in distinct colours. The first dorsal is greenish, with its external 

 part rather darker ; the second is yellow, as is also the last ; the 

 upper pirmwloe are black, and the lower white ; the anal and ven- 

 trals are of the latter colour ; the pectorals are almost black ; 

 the eye is silvery. 



I have only seen one specimen of this fish on the Melbourne 

 Market, in the month of September ; it measured 13 inches. 



This sort appears very distinct from Scomber Australasicus 

 which has an air-bladder, and whose fins have — 



Dorsal 9—1—12. Anal 2—11. 



ZEUS. 



The fish on which this genus was originally formed is known 

 since the earliest ages, and the people on the shores of the Medi- 

 terranean give it the name of Saint Peter's Fish. 



The first mention of an Australian species is due to Richardson 

 (" Erebus and Terror"), but the only specimen he had seen was 

 in such a bad state of preservation that he thought at first that it 

 might belong to Capros Australis that he had himself previously 

 described in the third volume of the " Zoological Transactions ;" 

 but in a later part of the " Fishes of the Erebus and Terror," he 

 states that he has been able to examine a more perfect specimen 

 from Western Australia, and he maintains his Zeus Australis. 

 Dr. Gunther, in the second, volume of his Catalogue, considers 

 this sort as the ordinary European one, and, without the least 

 doubt occurring in his mind, states that this inhabits the Mediter- 

 ranean, Atlantic, and Australian seas. The fact that it had 

 never been observed out of Europe, or at least south of the 

 Canary Islands, and that the different species found at 

 Madeira and the Cape of Grood Hope were specifically 

 different from the European one, might perhaps have led a 

 Zoologist to admit the probability of a specific difference 

 in sorts whose habitat is so remote. The Madeira sort 

 is the Conchifer of Lowe, and the South African one the 

 Capensis of Cuvier and Valenciennes ; but it is true that these 

 last authors say that Messrs. Webb and Berthelot have found 

 the common sort at Teneriff 



