100 
or very elongate appendages, sometimes absent. 
Pseudobrancliise sometimes bidden.” 
It appears to me that this family is placed by Dr. Gunther too 
far from Fercidm, to which it is very nearly allied. 
In speaking of this family Dr. Gunther says, “ not to he found, 
in Australia ; hut in this, as it so often happens, nature does not 
submit herself to the laws imposed by naturalists. The presence 
of a large Scicena in the Victorian seas was first announced by 
Professor M‘Coy, in his “ Notes on the Zoology of Victoria,” in 
the Eeports of the International Exhibition of Melbourne, 1866. 
He considers it as the same as the Mediterranean sort. So. 
Aquila. This might have been the case, as the species that abounds 
at the Cape of Good Hope, and on which Cuvier had formed his 
Scicena Hololepidota, does not appear to differ specially from it, 
but on comparing a specimen of the Australian fish with the 
descriptions of Cuvier and Dr. Gunther, I find differences which 
will not allow me to adopt the opinion of the learned Professor 
of the Melbourne University. In fact it appears doubtful that 
it even belongs to the same genus. Dr. Gunther gives Scicena 
as a character to have the upper jaw overlapping the other one, 
both jaws being equal ; and in the Australian fish the lower jaw 
protrudes over the upper one. Cuvier attributes also to Scicena 
the character of having the prseoperculum serrated ; but in old 
individuals this disappears. Taking even for granted that the 
Australian fish belongs to Scicena, we still find numerous differ- 
ences with the European sort. 
SCIHINA. 
SCIjBJfA ANTARCTICA. 
(The King Fish.') 
Taking Cuvier’s description, we find : 1st, that in the Euro- 
pean sort the cleft of the mouth extends to below one-third of 
the eye : in Antarctica it ends before the eye. 2nd, that at the 
lower jaw there are numerous small teeth between the large 
ones : none exist in the Australian fish. 3rd, the diameter of 
the eye forms about one-sixth of the total length of the head : 
in Antarctica the orbit is only one-eighth, and the eye 
