FISHES. 



Teleostei. 



Labrid^. 



PROTAUTOGA. 

 Protautoga conidens. 



Tautoga (Protautoga) conidens. Leidy : Pr. Ac. Nat. Sc. 187.3, 15 ; Am. Jour. Sc. 

 1873, 312. 



A short time since, Mr. C M. Smith, engineer, of Richmond, Virginia, 

 submitted to the writer, for examination, a small collection of fossil bones, 

 which had been discovered by him during the construction of a tunnel 

 beneath the city. Mr. Smith informs me that the material penetrated by 

 the tunnel, in which the bones were found, consists of a stiff blue clay con- 

 taining remains of infusoria. Oh examining a portion of the substance with 

 the microscope, I observed an abundance of well-preserved frustules of 

 Coscinodiscus, besides many other less conspicuous diatomes. 



The fossil bones consist mainly of vertebrae and teeth of Cetaceans, the 

 teeth of Procamelus virginietisis, previously described, a portion of a humerus 

 of a bird, and a number of remains of fishes. 



Among the latter there are two specimens which consist of portions of 

 the premaxillaries, with teeth, represented in Figs. 56, 57, Plate XXXII, of 

 a species of Tautoga larger than the living black-fish, Tautoga americana. 



The better-preserved specimen exhibits the base of attachment of the 

 first large tooth, and succeeding it a row of seven teeth. These are separated 

 by wider intervals than the fewer teeth of the same kind of the recent black- 

 fish. The points of the teeth are more regularly conical tlian in the latter. 

 Within the position of the larger teeth there is a row of small teeth. 



The second specimen contains the first large tooth alone. This tooth is 

 not longer than in the recent bl^ck-fish, but is more robust, and its enameloid- 

 covered extremity is more perfectly conical or is less flattened from without 

 inwardly. 



The premaxillary bone is flatter externally than in the black-fish, and looks 

 as if it had not turned down in a hook-like end as in the latter. The speci- 



