Page:Transactions NZ Institute Volume 30.djvu/285
most beautiful and at the same time fragile appearance, looking as if it were made out of brilliant polished silver, the jetblack markings on the shoulders being very much enhanced thereby, as were also the varied scarlet and bright-red tints of the elevated anterior portions of the dorsal fin or crest, whilst the oval and rounded markings on the sides seemed to alternately intensify or diminish in tone. The first and second elevated portions of the dorsal were exactly as described by Professor Parker (Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xx., p. 25), the formula agreeing, but the rays of the third extended, or lower, portion of the dorsal, as may be seen by my enumeration, are much more numerous. In all other particulars but those hereafter described there was perfect agreement also. The fractured pelvic or ventral ray had the shaft partly split and then broken diagonally, making a perfect joint with the stump left on the fish, verifying that there had been no curtailment in its total length, and I have much delight in fully describing and illustrating its peculiar and so far hitherto undetected development. The bony part of the shaft reminded me very much of such portion of the plume of a peacock, but in consistence was much harder. The total length of the filament when fitted in its position was 3 ft. 13/4 in., and it was supplied, as has been before described, along its rearmost or axillary edge with a membrane. This membrane commenced at the axillae with a width of about 3/10 in., which width was kept for a little distance, but slightly decreasing, then gradually increasing until, at a point about 2 in. from commencement, it had widened to a rounded shape, with a width about equal to twice the height of the lower central portion of the emargination; thus the membrane continued in emarginations or waves of like spacing and proportions until a point 75 in. from the commencement of the spatulate expansion of the extremity was reached; here the membrane terminated, not abruptly, but with a flowing curve from the previous expansion, leaving the now extremely delicate shaft perfectly bare. The regularity of the distances between the summits of the waved outline of the membrane kept pretty constant at the distance (2 in.) noted, but the heights gradually and slightly declined from those near the origin of the shaft of 0.2 in. for the lower and 0.4 in. for the higher portions to near and at the extreme end of the membrane, where the heights were respectively 3/20 in. for the lower and 3/10 in. for the higher emargination. The shaft was quite white at the thicker or basal end, darkening at the thinner or terminal. The colour of the membrane. between the more elevated portions was a transparent ruby tint, and at the more elevated portions a bright and opaque scarlet, capped on each summit with an ellipsoidal patch of opaque milk-white. My drawings (Plates XXVIII.–XXX.)