64 
RECORDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM. 
DESCRIPTION OF a NEW PELAGIC FISH FROM 
NEW ZEALAND. 
By J. Douglas Ogilby. 
Some months ago the Australian Museum received, through 
the kindness of the Fresh Food and Ice Company, Sydney, a fine 
specimen of an unknown pelagic fish from New Zealand, being 
one of a consignment forwarded to the Company for sale in 
Sydney, the bulk of which consisted of Trout, Rock Cod (Percis 
colias J , and Flounders ( Rhombosolea monopus). This example, 
having been imported for edible purposes, had of course been 
thoroughly cleaned before being placed in the ice chamber, and I 
am therefore, unable to give the number of pyloric appendages. 
The occurrence of this genus in Australasian waters, is quite 
as interesting as the discovery of Tetragonurus * some years ago at 
Lord Howe Island, and bears a close analogy to it, both genera 
being more or less distinctly Mediterranean types. 
Centrolophus maoricus, sp. nov. 
B. vii. D. 38. A. 25. V. 1/5. P.21. 0.19. 
The length of the head is equal to that of the caudal fin, and 
five and a half in the total length ; the greatest height of the 
body is beneath the longest dorsal rays, and is contained five times 
in the same. The eye is large, and is surrounded by a prominent 
naked lid ; it is situated near the upper profile of the head, and 
its diameter is four and one-tenth in the length of the head, and 
one and one-seventh in that of the snout, which is obtuse and 
abruptly truncated, and projects slightly beyond the lower jaw ; 
the interorbital space is convex and its width is equal to the 
length of the snout. The nostrils are situated far forward, 
immediately behind the angle of the snout ; the anterior is oval 
and vertical, the posterior much larger and subarcuate. The 
upper profile of the head is slightly concave. The jaws are 
equal, and the cleft of the mouth is of moderate width, the 
maxilla reaching to beneath the anterior fourth of the orbit. 
The vertical limb of the preopercle is straight and slightly inclined 
forward, its angle and lower limb finely denticulated ; the margins 
of the sub- and inter-opercles rather more strongly so. * A single 
series of cardiform teeth in the jaws, so irregularly placed as to 
form in many cases an apparently double series. The dorsal fin 
* Macleay, Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. Wales, x. p. 718, and op. cit. (2) i. 
p. 511; Ramsay & Ogilby, op. cit. (2) iii. p. 9. 
