EDIBLE FISHES OF QUEENSLAND.— OGILBY. 
91 
Gill-rakers moderately loii^ and slender, 14 or 15 on the lower branch of 
the anterior arch, the longest 5-75 to 7-5 in the length of the head. Vent about 
midway between the origins of the ventrals and anal. 
Silvery, the upper surface washed with blue, the sides and lower surface 
iridescent ; young with six or seven darker bands about as wide as the interspace ; 
these are sometimes directed obliciuel^^ forward, but more usually the body-bands 
are vertical leaving the orbito-uudial band obliciue ; this latter is persistent in 
the adult as a more or less defined supraciliary blotch ; none of the bands descend 
to the abdominal or thoracic regions, though posteriorly some may approach the- 
anal. A large dark suffused spot on the operclo; tip of mandible dusky. Fila- 
mentous dorsal and anal ray>s and the ventrals black in the young, yellow in the 
adult, the black persistent as a basal spot, which is generally present on the 
dorsal, more rarely on the anal; rest of the tins yellowish gray, the caudal with 
a brownish tinge, in the young bla(*k-cdged. (cilidris, furnished with cilia; in 
allusion to the hair-like I’ays of the dorsal and anal fins.) 
Described from three ^loreton Bay examples, measuring res^oectively 
90, 114, and 247 millini., the smallest and the largest being in the collection of 
the Amateur FishermeiFs Association, by wIiotu they were kindly lent to us for 
the purpose of this work; tiie third is in the Queensland iluseum. 
Histoncal: — Being unable to consult the works of the early Dutch 
naturalists, we have been compelled to trust to Valenciennes for the establishment 
of the identity of all their figures with Aleciis indica; but the fact that the 
species, of which we are now treating, is also widely distributed throughout the 
Indo-Malayan Archipelago suggests that some confusion may have occurred 
among them, as we have shown to b(i the case with those who came after 
them. Indeed Valemdcjines’ own treatment of the sul)ject does not invite much 
confidence in his dealings with that of others. Bonnaterre’s figure shows well 
the distinctive characters Avhicli se])arate this fish from its congener, init the 
same can not be said of Russel ks in whose drawings they are inextricably mixed. 
In 1826 Dr. Samuel MitchilF of New York described as Zeus criniius a small 
fish which had been washed ashore on Block Island in the North-West Atlantic. 
This fish has been generally referred by recent writers to the synonymy of 
A. ciliat'is, but this view' was not held by Gunther or Liitken. RiippelFs figure 
of Blepharis fasciaius is said by Jordan and Richardson'^ to be well dis- 
tinguished from that of his Scyris indieus, but these authors are at variance 
wdth Gunther as to which figure represents B. fasciaius (i.e. A, ciliaris). 
Valenciennes described this species by no less than four names — Blepharis 
® Gunther refers this fish to the synonymy of Caranxi sutor, giving the reference as. 
Z. cruiitus Akerly. There are two errors here; firstly the fish was described by Mitchill, 
Akerly being merely the artist who drew Mitchill ’s plate, and secondly Z. crinitus antedating 
Blepharis sutor by seven years, the position of the names should have been reversed. 
’Bull. U. 8. Bur. Fish., xxvii, p. 251. 
