26 
RECORDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM. 
forces upon us the consideration whether these characters, taken 
separately or in conjunction, should not entitle this and similar 
forms to generic rank. The latter character, however, that is the 
acute spiniferous ridge between the occiput and the dorsal fin, is 
common to all the fresh- water and estuary non-migratory Herrings 
of the cismontane rivers of the Colony, between the limits of the 
Richmond River and Botany Bay, which the author has had an 
opportunity of examining : the former character, that of the 
position of the ventral fin, has been extensively used by 
systematists as one on which to base a separate genus. This is 
not the place to discuss the importance or otherwise of this 
character, but it is worthy of notice that in our common fresh- 
water herring ( Clupea novce-hollandice , Cuv. & Yal. = C. rich- 
’ mondia , Macl. = (?) C. vittata , Casteln.) the ventral fins are 
inserted immediately below the origin of the dorsal. 
With regard to the dorsal serrature, we appeal to our fellow- 
workers in other countries to examine more carefully the anadro- 
mous herrings of their rivers and estuaries, for should it prove to 
be the case that all the fresh-water herrings have this character- 
istic, they are clearly separable from the typical Clupea. 
All species, therefore, in which the occipito-dorsal serrature 
is present, might be separated therefrom under the name of 
Hyperlophus , and distinguished from Clupea by this character. 
On the STRUCTURE and AFFINITIES of PANDA 
ATOMATA, Gray * 
By C. Hedley, F.L.S. 
[Plates IY. Y. VI.] 
Some uncertainty appears to prevail regarding the position which 
' Bnlimus atomatus, Gray, should occupy. The latest volume of 
the “Monographia Heliceorum Viventium” includes it in a section 
embracing another Australian and a dozen South American 
species, an arrangement which must surely violate natural 
*&ince this essay was written I learn that, by an odd coincidence, both 
Mr. Pilsbry and myself independently arrived at the conclusion that 
atomata should correctly be referred to Panda , and published our opinions 
simultaneously in America and Australia, in “The Nautilus,” Vol. VI., 
No. 1, p. 9, May, 1892; and in the “Abstract” of the Proceedings of the 
Linn. Soc. N.S.W., April, 1892, respectively. 
