96 
MEMOIBS OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM. 
however, followed Valeneieiiues in upholding the validity of T. ohlongus, and 
the latter even went so far as to unite T. russellii Avitli T. hailloni, even though 
years previously Valeneiennes had eorreetly pointed out the distinctive characters 
of each species. This mistake of Giinther was destined to cause much confusion 
among the earlier Australian ichthyologists and has indeed only been finally 
interred within the last few years, even though Day in 1876 had fully exposed 
the error and vindicated the claims of the two forms to specific separation. In 
1886, shortly after our arrival in New South Wales and before we had had an 
opportunity of examining the species, we followed :\lacleay in cataloguing 
T. hailloni as a Port Jackson fish, but at the same time emphasized our dissent 
from the Giintherian dictum by omitting T. runsdlii from the synonymy of that 
species. Seven years later, however, having in the interim handled many 
specimens we for the first time established the presence of T. russclUi in 
Aiisti'alian waters. ^Meanwhile Giinther, having obtained from the Coast of 
Queensland a six inches specimen from which the usual spots were absent, 
described it as new under the mime T. coppingeni. dedicating it to Staff-Surgeon 
11. W. Coppinger of IT.iil.S. “Alert,” then on survey duty off the Australian Coast, 
who was responsible for its collection. A comparison of our respective descrip- 
tions, after setting aside as negligible the presence or absence of lateral spots, 
fails to reveal any structural differeuces, save the slightly greater depth and the 
much smaller eye; the latter character, if correctly stated, is the more extra- 
ordinary as Giinther ’s specimen was young, and we are inclined to think that 
the artist, whose delineation of the outside eye makes it 4 (not 4-5) in the length 
of Ihe head, is more correct than the describer; in a six inches specimen now 
before us the measurements are as 1 to 3-5. T. copping cri may, therefore, be 
definitely included in the synonymy of T. hotla. In 1904 we were disagreeably 
astonished to find that AVaite had reinstated T. hailloni a.s a New South Wales 
species to the exclusion of T. holla-, it was doubtless due to this that Stead two 
years later included T. hailloni in his catalogue of the Edible Pishes of .Virstralia, 
but in his next publication he corrected his error and reverted to T. russellii as 
the New South Wales T-epresentative. W^e take this opportunity of affirming 
that there is no authentic record of the occurrence of T. hailloni on the coast of 
the southern State. AA^ith regard to our T. velox, after handling many specimens 
from Aloreton Bay and its neighbourhood, we have come to the conclusion that 
the species was erroneously formed on an unusually vigorous individual, the 
virility of which chiefly revealed itself in the increased number of the dorsal and 
anal fin-rays and the extraordinary length of the soft dorsal, caudal, and anal 
lobes. How greatly these dift'erences altered the habit of the individual the 
following table, comparing T. velox with an average specimen of about the same 
size will show, the second set of figures belonging to the spurious T. velox. 
“ Length of body in millimeters from tip of snout to end of hypural bone 
240, 225 ; number of soft rays in the anal 22, 26 ; length of dorsal lobe to that 
