462 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



may be made of Dr. E. Henning's " Gyrodus und die Organisation 

 der Pycnodonten," published in the Stuttgart Palceontographica 

 (liii. pp. 137 et seq.). The author claims that he is the first to 

 give a full and detailed account of all the individual skeletal 

 elements of these fishes, more especially those of the skull. In 

 many respects, particularly in dental characters, the pycnodonts 

 are evidently related to the lepidodonts (Semiono'tidce). Both, 

 indeed, seem to be derived from the same stock ; the pycnodonts 

 being, however, specialised for a particular mode of life, which 

 has resulted in the loss of many primitive characters. Gyrodus, 

 Mesturus, Microdon, and Stcmmatodus form the more primitive 

 group, connected by Palceobalistum, especially in cranial char- 

 acters, with the Eocene Py modus. These fishes probably fed 

 on sedentary or slow-moving invertebrates ; and form an analo- 

 gous type to the modern wolf-fish {Anarrhichas). From the 

 deep form of the body in many, such as Mcsodou, they were 

 probably slow swimmers ; but the somewhat elongated shape 

 of Pycnodus suggests more rapid movement. 



Dr. Smith Woodward's descriptive work includes a paper on 

 Carboniferous fishes from the Mansfield district of Victoria 

 {Mem. Nat. Mus. Melbourne, No. 1). The remains were dis- 

 covered in 1888, and a notice of them published by the late 

 Sir F. McCoy in the following year. Of the six generic types 

 recognised, one is too imperfectly known for its affinities to be 

 exactly defined ; four others, Acanthodes, Ctenodus, Strcpsodus, 

 and Elonichthys, occur in the Permian and Carboniferous of 

 Europe and the Carboniferous of North America ; but the sixth, 

 Gyracanthides, although related to a northern Carboniferous type, 

 is peculiar and of exceptional interest. It appears, indeed, to be 

 an acanthodian referable either to the Diplacanthidce or a kindred 

 family group, but of a highly specialised nature, the specialisation 

 displaying itself in the enlargement of the pectoral fins, the re- 

 duction and forward displacement of the pelvics, and the absence 

 or modification of the intermediate spines. A restored figure of 

 this remarkable shark is given. 



In the paper referred to above, in connection with a dino- 

 saurian claw, the same palaeontologist records Ceratodus from 

 the Jurassic of Victoria, thus confirming the evidence of the 

 extension of the Gondwana fauna to Australia. From the Lias 

 of Lyme Regis he describes {Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. lxii. pp. 1-4) 

 a new species of the chimasroid Myriacanthus ; and to the 



