Page:Transactions NZ Institute Volume 30.djvu/283

Easter gales seem now to have become established facts, and those of last Easter in our Island were quite up to the record. Many sea-birds were blown far inland. The petrels seem to suffer the most, and still more so if hailstones are driven by the fiercer squalls of the south-east gales. Some of the Prions were found alive thirty-six miles from the sea. I saw several albatros, and secured one in immature plumage of the shy albatros (Diomedea salvini, Roths.), which had been blown in at Waitotara.

The only fish that has come to hand here from the effects of the gale is a young Regalecus sp. This uncommon fish was cast ashore at Waikanae, and kindly forwarded to me by Mr. John Field, It was in fairly good order for a Regalecus, though almost broken in two about 18 in. from the tail, the dorsal fin being also very much destroyed. The total length was 7 ft. 4¼ in. The fish tapered very gradually, but the greatest depth seemed to be about 2 ft. from the gill-openings, and was 8½ in., the dorsal fin here being 2 in. in addition. The head measured 8½ in. with the mouth open, which is protractile; the eye 1⅝ in. in diameter. The length of ventral or oar fins I found to be 3 ft. 1 in. The one bony ray forming the fin was very much the same in thickness and appearance as the quill of a peacock's tail-feather would be if the feather part had been stripped away. The blade parts of these oar-fins were oval in shape, measuring 12 in. by 1 ín., the colour being bright rosy-crimson shaded by deep-blue markings. There were films or finlets along the spine of this fin of the same colours, but no doubt the colours of these tender parts were much altered by the knocking about they received on the beach. The other fins were of a rosy-red colour. The dorsal fin contained 168 rays; pectoral fin, 14. The body of the fish was like bright frosted silver, reminding me much of the satin silver we see so much of now in electro-plate—not shining like a mackerel, but with the surface grained, and much brighter than a frost-fish. The irregular perpendicular markings of deep blue were much wider than in other two much larger specimens I have seen, these being over ½ in. wide. There was no caudal fin; the fish ended abruptly with thick rounded end, and there were no spines at caudal end, as mentioned by Couch: no filament or membrane. The crest