III. DIPLOMYSTUS GOOD I Eastman. 



By W. J. Holland. 

 (Plate I.) 



In the Annals of the Carnegie Museum, Vol. VIII, pp. 370-378, 

 Plates XXIII and XXIV, the late Dr. Charles R. Eastman gave an 

 account of some fossil fishes obtained by Mr. Albert I. Good at 

 Benito, Spanish Guinea. To one of the species Dr. Eastman gave 

 the name Diplomystus goodi (Cf. /. c, p. 375) and upon the plates which 

 accompany his article he gave figures carefully prepared by Mr. Sidney 

 Prentice of the material upon which his description was based. 



Since Mr. Good first collected at the spot others have resorted to it 

 and have dug up from the bituminous shales at the edge of the sea a 

 number of slabs upon some of which are preserved better impressions 

 of the skeletal remains than were in our possession at the time Dr. 

 Eastman prepared his article. A comparatively recent accession to 

 the Section of Vertebrate Paleontology in the Carnegie Museum 

 consists of a number of slabs (Ace. No. 61 19) upon one of which are 

 preserved the remains of Diplomystus goodi in much better condition 

 than was the case with the type specimen upon which Dr. Eastman 

 wrote. It has seemed to the writer that it might be well to reproduce 

 and publish a photograph of this particular slab, as it will serve to 

 convey to the student a better idea of the species than can be obtained 

 from the figures cited above. 



As Dr. Eastman observed, the shale is highly charged with carbon- 

 aceous matter, and the specimen reproduced shows about the middle 

 of the ventral region a dark mass, which appears to the writer to be a 

 bit of fossil vegetable matter superimposed upon the vertebrae and 

 ribs at that point. The laminae of the shale containing the fossil 

 remains are often quite thin and blackish or paler brown in color, 

 and are intercalated between layers of fine sandy shale, which are of 

 varying thickness. In the case of the present specimen the fish is 

 preserved in a layer only a few millimeters in thickness, which is 

 imbedded upon a slab of gritty grey sandstone about an inch in 



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