ON THE GREAT OAR-FISH. 1 55 



Museum, they " are true deep sea fishes, met with in all parts of the 

 ocean, generally found when floating dead on the surface or thrown 

 ashore by the waves. Their body is like a band, specimens from 15 

 to 20 feet long being only from 10 to 12 inches deep, and about an 

 inch or two broad at their thickest part. The eye is large and 

 lateral ; the mouth small, armed with very feeble teeth, or altogether 

 wanting them; the head deep and short. A high dorsal fin runs 

 along the whole length of the back, and is supported by extremely 

 numerous and fragile rays; its foremost portion on the head is 

 detached from the rest of the fin, and is composed of very elongate 

 flexible spines." There is no anal fin. The ventral fins are reduced 

 to a single long filament, terminating in an oar-blade-like expansion. 

 The coloration of the body is of a beautiful glistening hue, like frosted 

 silver, admirably set off by the rich rosy red colour of their dorsal 

 and ventral fins. Black spots and irregular streaks, especially in the 

 front part of the body, contribute their share toward the effective 

 adornment of this singular fish. " At what depth Ribbon-fishes live 

 is not known ; probably the depths vary for different species, but 

 although none have yet been obtained by means of the deep sea 

 dredge, they must be abundant in all oceans, as dead fishes, or 

 fragments of them, are frequently obtained. There is no doubt that 

 fishes with such delicate appendages as their crest and ventral fins, 

 are bred and live in depths where the water is absolutely quiet, as a 

 sojourn in the disturbed water of the surface would deprive them at 

 once of organs which must be of some utility for their preservation." 

 The Oar-fishes are the largest of the deep-sea fishes known. They 

 derive their name from the singular form of their ventral fins, which 

 reduced to one long slender and fragile filament, terminating in 

 an oar-blade-like expansion which, projecting from its sides for a 

 distance, in our specimen, of nearly 3-|- feet, are functionally useless. 



The Regaled, or Oared-Ribbon fishes, have been taken in the 

 Mediterranean, in the North and South Atlantic, and in the Indian 

 oceans ; in Australian waters, one has been taken off the coast of 

 Victoria, and several on the shores of this colony ; but they are very 

 scarce, not more than twenty captures having been recorded from 

 England in the space of a century and a-half, and not more than 

 thirteen from the coasts of Norway. The present specimen is the 

 tenth caught in New Zealand. I take from a paper read before the 

 Otago Institute by Professor Parker, F.R.S., who has compiled a list 

 of these captures up to the date of his communication, describing the 

 eighth species taken on our coast, the following notes : — Of these one 

 was captured at Nelson in 1860, a second at Jackson's Bay in 1874, 

 another (Regalecus pacificus, Haast) which is now in the Canterbury 

 Museum, as well as a drawing of it by Dr. Powell, was caught at New 

 Brighton in 1876 ; a fourth was cast ashore on Little Waimangarao 

 beach, on the West Coast of the South Island ; a fifth (R. bamksii) at 

 Cape Farewell in 1877; the sixth was thrown on the shore near 

 Moeraki about the year 1881, and near the same place the seventh 

 also (Regalecus argenteus, Parker) on the 14th June, 1S83, whose 

 skeleton is now in the British Museum, South Kensington ; the 

 eighth — a specimen of the same species — :ame ashorj in Otago 

 Harbour about ten miles north of Dunedin, on June 3rl 1857, and 



