86 
MEMOmS OF TEE QVEENSLAEE MUSEUM. 
Thursday Island^ and the Burnett River, M.Q., and presented to the Queens- 
land i\Iuseuna by the AVanetta Pearling Co., Capt. Donald AIcDonald (2), and 
Air. L. n. Alaynard. 
nistoncal: — To the early Duteh natiiralists and historians of the East 
Indies this fish was well known from the time of Nieuhof, wlio vLsited those seas, 
in the latter half of the seventeenth century. Its extraordinary appearance 
reiidered it a favorite subject for illustration and, after Nieuliof, AVillughby, 
Ruysch, A^alentyn, Seba, and Renard figured it at intervals Avitli more or less, 
success. These were followed by certain authors (Ronnaterre, Ginelin, Laeepede) 
whose accounts wcu'e jnainly based on the tlescriptions and figures of their 
predeet'ssors, but Avho wofully coinplicated matters by confounding our fish with 
the Zetis gallus of Linnanis, an eastern Americ^nn species now more generally 
known as Scloie vomer. Russell, a contemimrary of LaceptKle, gave in 1803 a 
recognizable figure of the young fish over the name Gurrah Parah'’ from a 
specimen taken on the East Coast of India. On the same sheet, as “ Chewoola 
Parah/’ he figured the young of the succeeding species, A. ciliaris and. while in 
some ])oints these figures are inaccurate, th(^ llattened outline of the abdominal 
r(‘gion, so distinctive of our present fish, is well shown as compared with the 
deeper and more rounded belly, which is <'haracteristic of its congener when 
young. Russell, however, like the others confused his '‘gurrah parah’' ^y\\h Zeus 
gallus Linnams, while he referred his “ chewoola parah^’ to Liunajus' Zeus 
vomer, thus while <'orrectly keeping the two Indian species separate, uniting them 
l)y two names, which properly belong to a single Atlantic species. Up to this 
time our fish was only Imown from Alalayan and Indian seas, and it was not until 
1828 that tlie eastern fish wirs liefinitely separated from its western relative by 
Riippell, wlu) desenabed it under the distinctive name of ^cgr'iA ludicns from 
spt'cimens ol)tained at Alassawa on the Abyssinian shore of the Red Sea. 
A^alenciennes in his two^ descriptions adds little or nothing to our knowledge of 
the species, nor does Cantor Avho also described it under two names. Ricliardson 
added the China Sea to its range, mentioning specimens sejit to England from 
Alacao and Canton. Rleeker, ])etween 1849 and 1870, rei>orted it from various- 
].)arts of the Alalay Archipelago as enumerated elsewluu'e, and finally imfiudes it 
among the fishes of Aladagas(*ar though, so far as we can astaulahi. it lias not been 
reported from either Alauritius or Zanzibar. Uj) to and including ]8Gt) Rleeker 
had rightly kept the Indo-Atalayan fish separate from that of the Atlantic, but 
^ Bean and ^A^ee(l remark — Cuvier & A^alenciennes describe this species under five- 
names: Scyris inclicus, Scyris alexandrimis, Oollicliihys major, GalHchthys ehevala, and 
GaUichfliys cegyptiacus.^’ Although there can be no (piestioii as to the close affinity that exists- 
between our fish and Alectis alemndrina, their identity cannot so carelessly be taken for 
granted, and we are disposed to ])lace more than ordinary reliance on the increased number of 
dorsal and anal rays in the Mediterranean form, on account of their remarkable constancy 
throughout the whole range of the Indo-lMcific, as favoring a contrary conclusion. This of 
course also excludes G. wgy^Uiacus, wdiile G. chevola is a synonym of A. ciliaris. 
