ACCOUNT OF A GANOID FISII FROM QUEENSLAND. 261 
happening in early youth, are readily repaired. The tail 
diminishes rapidly behind in vertical dimension, till it ends 
in a thin point. The entire tail is surrounded by a broad, 
vertical fin, which commences on the back behind the middle 
of the trunk, and is supported by innumerable fine cartila- 
ginous rays. There are two fore and two hind paddles , similar 
to each other in shape and size, and very different from the 
fins of ordinary fishes. They are covered with small scales 
along the middle from the root to their extremity, and sur- 
rounded by a rayed fringe similar to the vertical fin. These 
paddles are flexible in every part and in every direction, and 
too feeble to assist in locomotion on land ; they may be of 
use when the animal crawls in water over the muddy bottom 
of a creek ; but the principal organ for locomotion is the tail, 
as in tailed Batrachians and the majority of fishes. 
The nasal openings and the dentition can be seen only after 
the mouth has been slit open. The situation of the former 
within the cavity of the mouth, two on each side, is a very 
important character, which hitherto had been known in 
Lepidosiren. The number and form of the teeth has been 
noticed above, and we have only to add that, beside those 
molar-like teeth, there are a pair of incisor-like teeth in the 
fore part of the palate, obliquely inserted in the vomer, and 
without corresponding teeth in the lower jaw. Knowing the 
kind of food taken by the Barramunda, we can readily per- 
ceive that the incisors will assist in taking up or tearing off 
leaves, which are then partially masticated between the un- 
dulated surfaces of the molars. 
With regard to the scales, we may add that a slight difference 
in their number has been observed in the specimens examined, 
a difference which, on a more extended examination, may 
prove to be not constant. The specimens from the Burnett 
Biver, to which first the name Ceratodus forsteri has been given, 
have the middle of the trunk surrounded by eighteen series of 
scales, whilst there are twenty-one of these series in examples from 
the Mary Biver. Consequently the scales appear conspicuously 
smaller and more numerous in the latter form, which I have 
named G. miolepis. 
The skeleton is cartilaginous ; where ossification appears, it 
is in the form of a more or less thin covering enveloping the 
cartilaginous substratum, but never taking its origin in the in- 
terior or by transmutation of the cartilage. Instead of a ver- 
tebral column we find a simple long, tapering chord, without 
any segmentation, but supporting a considerable number of 
apophyses. Twenty-seven of them are abdominal and bear 
well developed ribs. A positively defined boundary between 
the notochord and the skull does not exist, but in a vertical 
