in the Camiel Coal of Fifeshire, 817 



I am (juite at a loss to reconcile, cither with*his statement that 

 the Megalichthys was a fresh-water fish, or with his theory of a 

 " pure lacustrine deposit." He says, p. 271, " As for the re- 

 mains of Cestracientes {and perhaps of the Megalichthys) ^ which 

 appear in more than one description of carboniferous limestone, 

 they point to estuaries, no less than to fresh-water lakes, as hav- 

 ing been, in primeval times, frequented by large animals in quest 

 of prey."" 



M. Agassiz, in his memoir on the Geological Distribution of 

 Fossil Fishes, read before the Geological Society on November 

 1834, states that " he cannot, on ichthyological data, decide on 

 the fresh-water or marine origin of the fish of the ancient 

 groups." There is, therefore, no evidence afforded by the re- 

 mains themselves, either of the marine or the fresh-water ha- 

 bits of the Megalichthys ; but we may infer that M. Agassiz in- 

 clines to the opinion of its having been a sea fish, from what hd 

 says in his " Rapport sur les Poissons Fossiles decouverts en 

 Jngleterrey In speaking (p. 28) of the Megalichthys Hibberti 

 of Burdiehouse, he says, " Ces fossiles proviennent d''un poisson 

 d'une famille qui ne comprend que deux genres dans la creation 

 actuelle ; dont les representants peuplaient surtout les mers qui 

 recouvraient la terre, avant la deposition des terrains cretaces ; 

 famille que j'ai appelee celle des sauroides." Dr Hibbert quotes 

 Cloquet's article in the Diet, des So. Nati when he describes the 

 Lepidosteus as an inhabitant of the lakes of South America. 

 But Cloquet is then speaking only of the two species, L. Gavial 

 and L. Spatula. In describing the other species, the L. Ilobolo, 

 he says, '* on peche ce poisson dans la mer qui arrose le Chili — 

 les insulaires de TArchipel de Chiloe font secher a la fumee une 

 grande quantite de ces robolos, et en font un commerce etendu." 

 Dr Hibbert ought, therefore, to have shewn that the megalich- 

 thys has a closer affinity to the fresh-water than to the marine 

 species of lepidosteus, before any conclusive argument can be 

 drawn from the resemblance. 



Thus it is evident, that the remains of the megalichthys af- 

 ford no evidence whatever of a lacustrine deposit, while their 

 occurrence in the regular coal-beds at Halbeath, and in those of 

 Stoneyhill near Musselburgh, the neighbourhood of Glasgow, 

 and other places, tend to prove a similarity of formation be- 



