EASTMAN: CATALOG OF FOSSIL FISHES IN CARNEGIE MUSEUM. 379 



The small and incomplete fish, which is illustrated in the accompanying plate, 

 possesses unusual interest on account of its containing within the abdominal 

 cavity a well preserved skeleton of a small Rhynchocephalian reptile. The prey 

 had been swallowed head first, and may have caused the death of the fish, as diges- 

 tion had not proceeded far enough to dismember the limbs nor to disturb the natural 

 position of the body-parts of the reptile, beyond a slight lateral compression of the 

 trunk. The head, notwithstanding its small size, is very well preserved, a fact 

 which is the more remarkable, when we consider the peculiar conditions which have 

 revealed to us the fate of both creatures. In the case of the reptile, which is 

 probably a young Homceosaurus, certain of the cranial elements and vacuities 

 are distinguishable as well as the sensory canals and even a few minute teeth. So 

 far as the writer is aware, paleontology affords no other instance of a fossil reptile 

 enclosed within the digestive tract of a fish. 



The apparent anomaly of finding a land reptile within the body of a marine 

 fish may be accounted for by supposing the former to have been a shore-inhabitant 

 of a coral island, thus resembling the modern Sphenodon in habitat. The creature 

 may have been carried out to sea by floating vegetation, and been seized at a distance 

 from land by a marine carnivorous fish. The proximity of land to the locality 

 when the deposits at Cerin were laid down is indicated by a considerable quantity 

 of plant remains, which have been described by Count G. de Saporta. 



An exceedingly well preserved example, which has been chosen for the purpose 

 of illustrating the characters of the adult of this species, is that shown in Plate LI, 

 fig. 3, which belongs to the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, Massa- 

 chusetts. 



Suborder ISOSPONDYLI. 



" Notochord varying in persistence, the vertebral centra usually complete, but 

 none coalesced; tail homocercal, but haemal supports not much expanded or fused. 

 Symplectic bone present; mandible simple, each ramus consisting only of two 

 elements (dentary and articulo-angular), with rare rudiments of a splenial on the 

 inner side. Pectoral arch suspended from the cranium; a precoracoid arch present, 

 infraclavicular plates wanting; pectoral fin with not more than four or five basals. 

 Pelvic fins abdominal. Scales ganoid only in the less specialized families." (A. S. 

 Woodward, I. c, Pt. Ill, p. 446). 



Family PHOLIDOPHORID^. 

 "Trunk elegantly fusiform. Head with delicate membrane-bones, the subor- 

 bital and circumorbital plates completely covering the cheek, all enamelled; snout 



