General and critical observations on the Fishes of Tasmania; With a classified catalogue of all the known species

In submitting to the Fellows of this Society my observations upon the Fishes of Tasmania, I am especially reminded of the valuable labours of the late Mr. Morton Allport in this direction, and of the loss which Ichthyology has sustained by his untimely death. Not only had he laboured zealously and successfully in all matters relating to the acclimatisation of the European Salmonidae and other fishes, but, in addition, he had at much pains during a number of years collected many of our indigenous fishes and forwarded them to Dr. Gunther, of the British Museum, with his observations. A few of those forwarded by him were afterwards described by Dr. Gunther as new to science, and a still larger number, although already known and described, were reported for the first time to include Tasmania in their distribution. In this way he materially extended our knowledge of the indigenous fishes, and so increased the known list from about 100 to 142 species. These were recorded by him in a MS. Catalogue, which the Council of this Society kindly placed at my disposal when they learned that I was independently engaged on a similar work.