CORRESPONDENCE. 
To the Editor American Naturalist : 
Str, — In your May issue, p. 437, you publish a note by D. S. J. 
referring to the recent Report of the Thetis Trawling Expedition on 
the Coast of New South Wales. Your contributor writes: “The 
nomenclature is very antiquated, the author apparently depending 
almost entirely on Giinther’s Catalogue of the Fishes of the British 
Museum, the one published volume of esr masterly cata- 
logue being ignored.” 
In common justice the writer might have taken note of the follow- 
ing passage on page 27 of the publication: “ The present report is 
of a popular character, and has been prepared rather for the benefit 
of the commercial than the scientific community. To this end the 
technical names employed are not necessarily those of strict science, 
but are those by which the various fishes are best known to amateurs 
both in science and fishing.” The nomenclature is mainly that of the 
catalogue of the fishes of New South Wales, by J. Douglas-Ogilby, a 
work largely used by those for whom the report was written. 
That I did not ignore Boulenger’s catalogue should be apparent 
from the occurrence in the report of the names Ceszoperca lepidoptera, 
Epinephelus septemfasciatus, and Acanthistius serratus. 
I am, sir, yours faithfully, 
Epcar R. WAITE. 
AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM, SYDNEY, June 16, 1899. 
