ACCOUNT OF A GANOID FISH FROM QUEENSLAND. 
259 
The Barramunda (we will use this probably oldest name) 
is said to be in the habit of going on land, or at least on mud- 
flats ; and this assertion appears to be borne out by the fact that 
it is provided with a lung. On the other hand, we must recollect 
that a similar belief has been entertained with regard to Lepi- 
dosiren , of which now numerous examples have been kept in 
captivity, but none have shown a tendency to leave the water. 
I think it much more probable that the Barramunda rises now 
and then to the surface of the water in order to fill its lung 
with air, and then descends again until the air is so much de- 
oxygenised as to render a renewal of it necessary. It is also 
said to make a grunting noise, which may be heard at night 
for some distance. This noise is probably produced by the 
passage of the air through the oesophagus when it is expelled 
for the purpose of renewal.* As the Barramunda has per- 
fectly developed gills, besides the lung, we can hardly 
doubt that, when it is in water of normal composition and 
sufficiently pure to yield the necessary supply of oxygen, 
these organs are sufficient for the purpose of breathing, 
and that the respiratory function rests with them alone. 
But when the fish is compelled to sojourn in thick, muddy 
water charged with gases which are the product of decompos- 
ing organic matter (and this must be the case very frequently 
during the droughts which annually exhaust the creeks of tro- 
pical Australia), it commences to breathe air with its lung in 
the way indicated above. If the medium in which it happens 
to be is perfectly unfit for breathing, the gills cease to have 
any function ; if only in a less degree, the gills may still con- 
tinue to assist in respiration. The Barramunda, in fact, can 
breathe by either gills or lungs alone, or by both simultaneously. 
It is not probable that it lives freely out of the water, its 
limbs being much too flexible for supporting the heavy and un- 
wieldy body, and too feeble generally to be of much use in 
locomotion on land. However, it is quite possible that it is 
occasionally compelled to leave the water, although I do not 
believe that it can exist without it in a lively condition for any 
length of time. 
Of its propagation or development we know nothing except 
that it deposits a great number of eggs of the size of those of a 
newt, and enveloped in a gelatinous case. We may infer that 
the young are provided with external gills, as in the African 
Lepidosiren and Polypterus. 
Before I proceed to the description of the Barramunda, it 
* Gurnards ( Triglo ) and Bull-heads ( Coitus ) are well known to produce 
a similar noise when drawn out of the water, by the air rushing from the 
air-bladder through the oesophagus 
