The Scottish Naturalist. 87 



few localities where it might be hopefully sought for, if it really 

 exist ; these are : 



1. In the Bishopmill quarry. In the Elgin Museum there is a 

 slab, indicating, from footprints, the presence of reptiles ; and 

 several Holoptychian remains have also been got from Bishopmill. 

 The best is now in the cabinet of James Powrie of Reswallie, 



2. On the same ridge as Bishopmill — about a mile to the west, 

 and due south of Newspynie church — is the Millstone quarry, 

 which has lately been opened up and worked to a greater extent 

 than formerly. In it fine specimens of fish and reptile have been 

 found by the workmen ; and they are now in the Museum at Elgin. 

 This quarry claims the special attention of those who desire to 



throw light on the subject. 



3. In the quarry near Nairn, and on the east side of the river, 

 plates of Pterichthys are not rare ; and, from it also, there is a 

 block of sandstone, now in the Elgin Museum, which presents 

 markings looked upon by some as caused by reptilian feet. 



4. The fine section, on the northern shore of the Moray Firth, 

 from the undoubted Old Red beds of Guinies to Portmahomack, 

 where footprints have been got, offers a fair field to fix, if possible, 

 the spot where the two formations meet. 



5. One other locality maybe named, although not so promising, 

 viz., that which lies between the well known reptiliferous beds of 

 Lossiemouth and the links of Stotfield, where Mr. Linn detected 

 fish-scales. 



In 1859, the Elgin district was visited by Murchison, Lyell, 

 Nicol, Ramsay, Harkness and others, who took different views as 

 to the age of those reptiliferous sandstones. Hitherto, the ques- 

 tion has, in some measure, been held as an open one ; but it is 

 time that it be closed and set at rest. The coming Aberdeen 

 meeting of the British Association may perhaps tend to do this, 

 and prove the soundness, or otherwise, of some words of Sir 

 Roderick Murchison, suggested by his first visit to this now famed 

 locality, viz " Field work for ever ! and perhaps the proud 

 palaeontologists will be obliged to bow to stratigraphical sequence." 

 It would not perhaps be out of place were visitors to these sand- 

 stone beds to keep before them the opening address at Montreal, 

 (given in " Nature " for 4th September), by W. T Blackford F.R.S., 

 in which are adduced "remarkable exceptions to the rule that 

 similarity of faunas and floras in fossiliferous formations through- 

 out the surface of the earth would imply identity of geological 

 age ; " and we are told, " that the practice, so common among 



