i Geo. o Provincial Museum Eepoet. Q 21 



Charlottes, near the northern end. His record is undoubtedly correct, and it is evident that 

 Erilepis was taken on the continental shelf, rather than in enclosed waters. 



While in Vancouver during November, at the plant of the Canadian Fishing Company, the 

 writer was shown two other specimens of this fish. 



Under the heading of " A Freak Fish." a statement with a photograph of the larger was 

 given in the Pacific Fisherman for November, as follows: — 



While the halibut-schooner " Borealis '" was fishing with halibut-trawls in 240 fathoms of 

 water in Rennel Sound, on the west coast of Queen Charlotte Island, British Columbia, during 

 October, a fish which weighed, in the round. 175 lb., and when dressed 145 lb., was caught. It 

 measured 5 feet 10 inches in length. The opinion was expressed that it was " a large sea-bass " 

 from Southern Pacific waters. Through the kindness of the company manager a smaller 

 specimen caught at the same time was sent to Stanford University in a frozen condition. There 

 it has been carefully examined and compared with a Japanese specimen, undoubtedly the same 

 cies. 



It will be noted that the locality was the same as the corrected one for the first specimen. 

 The probability is that there is an available explanation for the occurrence. In the region 

 indicated the continental shelf drops with great rapidity to oceanic depths, and a halibut-trawl 

 set in 150 fathoms on its shoreward end frequently drops as far as its buoys will allow it on 

 the seaward end. This may be as much as 400 fathoms. It has only been in recent years, 

 particularly in the winter, that halibut-fishing has been carried on in depths of 140 fathoms 

 and more, as has been shown in the reports of the British Columbia Commissioner of Fisheries 

 '.r 1915. The cousin of the present species, the Alaska black cod (Anoplopoma), inhabits 

 considerable depths also, and in the last few years more of them are being caught by the 

 halibut-boats. The fishermen even occasionally bring up Macrouroid species, formerly utterly 

 unknown to them. This " rare fish " then has perhaps been caught by the fishermen while they 

 were utilizing unusual depths, and it may well be common and relatively abundant in its 

 peculiar habitat. 



The Japanese fishermen, it is worthy of note, fish their waters more closely than is done 

 ir coasts, and Dr. Jordan and Professor Snyder say: "According to Kuma Aoki, an 

 intelligent fisherman of Misaki. it is occasionally taken in the Kuro Siwo, it is not rare, and 

 reaches the weight of 200 lb. Although so rare in collections, the species is well known to the 

 fishermen." There is no good reason why more extensive exploitation of our fishing-ground will 

 not bring to light at least an abundance equal to that of the species in Japan. It is hence 

 unjust to call the fish a " stray." and one must be reserved in calling it " rare." Since the only 

 specimens known to be preserved in museums have come from Japan, and the type of the 

 species (from Monterey. California) which was in the collection of the California Academy of 

 Sciences in San Francisco has been destroyed, the following notes regarding the specimens now 

 at hand are appended : — 



The fish, 112 cm. in total length and 9S to base of caudal, is bass-like, with massive head 

 and rotund body: its width -.• its depth, but with somewhat slender caudal peduncle, nearly 

 round ,nid quickly tapering. The iuterorbital is wide, convex, and the preorbitals are prominent, 

 nearly overhanging. The eyes are small, slightly oval lateral in outlook, and over a wide sub- 

 orbital. The maxillary ends below the centre of the pupil. The lower jaw projects somewhat, 

 its tip lying in the axis of the body, continues the profile lines of the head and body, which taper 

 anteriorly and posteriorly. 



The teeth are in a band six or seven series wide anteriorly in the upper jaw, four or five 

 below, narrowing posteriorly; recurved, slender, and sharp; none of them canine-like or enlarged; 

 in a V-shaped patch on vomer: in narrow 1 ands on palatines. 



The gill-arches and viscera were removed when the fish was frozen. 



The dorsals are apparently separated by the space of two spines, but dissection shows these 



to be present, buried below the thick skin: two anterior spines are very short; the third is the 



_ -r, with the margin of the fin falling straightly to the first buried spine. Preceding the 



rays are two unjoined rays (or spines^, closely applied to the third. The soft dorsal is 

 highest at the fifth ray. slightly amarginate in outline. When supine the longest dorsal ray 

 reaches over the bases of the seven following rays, while at the similarly shaped anal reaches 

 to the base of the last. The last rays in both fins are less in length than the eye diameter. 



