214 
RECORDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM. 
This species is perhaps the one doubtfully referred by Johnston* * * § 
to II. conwayi, Rich.f It is, however, quite distinct from that 
species, and differs in the following particulars : — 
The dorsal has a smaller number of spines, and is relatively 
very much higher, the spines also are longer than the rays ; 
whereas in II. conwayi the rays are twice as long as the spines — 
a character common also to the anal. 
H. fasciatus and II. punctatus £ have each twelve dorsal spines 
and sixteen rays, the body in these species is shorter and higher, 
the eye is smaller and the soft vertical fins much longer than in 
II. woodwardi. 
In common with other Australian workers, I have at times re- 
ferred to the difficulty experienced by zoological writers living at 
prohibitive distances from European literary centres, and the 
hopelessness, in many cases, of bringing an undertaking to a 
satisfactory conclusion. Such disabilities are caused by a lack of 
necessary literature, and many are the instances in which a train 
of research has to be abandoned owing to the impossibility of 
consulting some particular paper. 
Where a genus is weighted with a large number of species, the 
difficulty may be appreciated ; but when only a few are known, 
the task would seem to be a simple one; this may not, however, 
be so, and I may instance Hoplegnathus , the genus now under 
consideration. 
Richardson first described the genus in 1840, as a Scaroid, under 
the name Oplegnathus ,§ the species being 0. conwaii. The follow- 
ing year he altered the generic name to Hoplegnathus and the 
specific one to conwayi , when exhibiting drawings before the 
meeting of the British Association, || and in 1849 published a full 
description and figure.1I The specimen described was supposed to 
be from Australia. In the year 1844, Temminck and Schlegel 
described two fishes from Japan under the generic name Scarodon , 
namely, S. fasciatus and S. punctatus^ { and mention the earliest 
representation of a species in the Atlas of Krusenstern’s voyage, 
under the name “Poisson perroquet noir.”** Both these examples 
were from Japan. 
* Johnston — Proc. Roy. Soc. Tas., .1884, p. 194. 
t Richardson — Proc. Zool. Soc., 1840, p. 27; and Trans. Zool. Soc., 1849, 
iii., p. 144, pi. vii , fig. 1. 
X Temminck and Schlegel — Fauna Japon, Pisces, 1844, p. 89, pi. xlvi. 
and p. 91. 
§ Richardson — Proc. Zool. Soc., 1840, p. 27. 
|| Richardson — Rep. Brit. Assoc., 1841 (1842), pt. 2, p. 71. 
IF Richardson — Trans. Zool. Soc., iii., 1849, p. 144, pi. vii., fig. 1. 
## Krusenstern — Atlas, pi. Iii., fig. 2. 
