196 Hardy on the Flora of Berwickshire. 



Crawley Dean for the new road. They consist of sandstones 

 and shales interstratified with more than 20 feet of thin beds of 

 impure magnesian limestone, and dip at a high angle to the 

 north-west. After a careful examination, several highly interesting 

 organic remains were discovered in the calcareous beds. Among 

 these are remains of extinct genera of Ganoid Fish — an order 

 distinguished by having bright angular scales composed of horny 

 or bony plates covered with enamel: the Sturgeon and the 

 Lepidosteus of the American lakes and rivers belong to this order. 

 The specimens found are too fragmentary and detached to admit 

 of specific determination : a long striated tooth, a portion of a 

 very small jaw with ten minute teeth and a scale, could however 

 be recognized as those of a Holoptychiits, an extinct genus which 

 combined reptilian with ichthyic characters. Several prettily 

 ornamented shining scales also occurred, belonging to Palao- 

 niscus, another Ganoid fish. Associated with these remains is 

 a species of Modiola, which resembles one occurring in great 

 abundance in the low^er shales of the carboniferous formation in 

 Ireland. The Crawley Dean beds belong to the same lower 

 group ; they occupy the same position as the strata on the Tweed 

 about Coldstream and on the Whiteadder below Churnside, and 

 are below the Productal limestones and workable coal of North- 

 umberland. 



Afevj Notes on Berwickshire Plants, with Localities for some 

 of the Species. By Mr. James Hardy. 



1. Ranunculus repens. The latest autumnal flowers are very 

 minute, often not larger than peas. 



2. R. bulbosus. Since the observation recorded in Dr. John- 

 ston's ' Nat. Hist, of the Eastern Borders,' i. p. 27, of its non- 

 occurrence here, I have observed it growing abundantly in an 

 old grass field behind Cockburnspath ; also in a confined space 

 at the foot of the Pease Burn ; and there are a few plants at the 

 south end of Penmanshiel Wood. 



3. R. hirsutus. A single plant in a new grass field at Pen- 

 manshiel, introduced with foreign clover seed. 



4. Caltha palustris, I have met with a proliferous, and also 

 a double state of this plant. 



5. Ulex europcEus. Whins seldom rise in heathy tracts, unless 

 the subsoil has been broken up; but they almost invariably 

 spot the surface, if the ground has formerly been cultivated. 

 The various old roads, by which the moors have been crossed in 

 former times, are either occupied by thickets of furze, or are 

 rapidly being filled up with them. 



