=The Galaxiidæ.=—The _Galaxiidæ_ are trout-like fishes of the southern rivers, where they take the place of the trout of the northern zones. The species lack the adipose fins and have the dorsal inserted well backward. According to Boulenger these fishes, having no mesocoraoid, should be placed among the _Haplomi_. Yet their relation to the _Haplochitonidæ_ is very close and both families may really belong to the _Isospondyli_. _Galaxias truttaceus_ is the kokopu, or "trout," of New Zealand. _Galaxias ocellatus_ is the yarra trout of Australia. Several other species are found in southern Australia, Tasmania, Patagonia, and the Falkland Islands, and even in South Africa. This very wide distribution in the rivers remote from each other has given rise to the suggestion of a former land connection between Australia and Patagonia. Other similar facts have led some geologists to believe in the existence of a former great continent called Antarctica, now submerged except that part which constitutes the present unknown land of the Antarctic. As intimated on p. 253, Vol. I, this distribution of _Galaxias_ with similar anomalies in other groups could not if unsupported by geological evidence be held to prove the former extension of the Antarctic continent. Dr. Boulenger[12] has recently shown that _Galaxias_ lives freely in salt water, a fact sufficient to account for its wide distribution in the rivers of the southern hemisphere. Footnote 12: Dr. Boulenger (_Nature_, Nov. 27, 1902) has the following note on _Galaxias_: "Most text-books and papers discussing geographical distribution have made much of the range of a genus of small fishes, somewhat resembling trout, the _Galaxias_, commonly described as true fresh-water forms, which have long been known from the extreme south of South America, New Zealand, Tasmania, and southern Australia. The discovery, within the last few years, of a species of the same genus in fresh water near Cape Town, whence it had previously been described as a loach by F. de Castelnau, has added to the interest, and has been adduced as a further argument in support of the former existence of an Antarctic continent. In alluding to this discovery when discussing the distribution of African fresh-water fishes in the introduction to my work 'Les Poissons du Bassin du Congo,' in 1901, I observed that, contrary to the prevailing notion, all species of _Galaxias_ are not confined to fresh water, and that the fact of some living both in the sea and in rivers suffices to explain the curious distribution of the genus; pointing out that in all probability these fishes were formerly more widely distributed in the seas south of the tropic of Capricorn, and that certain species, adapting themselves entirely to fresh-water life, have become localized at the distant points where they are now known to exist. Although as recently as October last the distinguished American ichthyologist D. S.