50 Transactions of the [Sess. 



one has said of*J. G. Hedwig that he was the prince of musco- 

 logists ; but this might be said also of Necker and of Weissius, of 

 Timm, of Grimm, and of Buxbaum, — they were princely in their 

 gifts, in their workings, and in their successes. Dr Buxbaum's 

 passion for work led him to spend months at a time in the forests, 

 and on the mountains of Jena, and resulted in his being entrusted 

 with the care of the Eoyal Gardens of St Petersburg by the Czar 

 of Eussia. Opportunity was thus secured for prosecuting that 

 careful work in Russia, in Turkey, in Siberia, and Astrakhan, with 

 which his name is inseparably connected. It was Linnfeus who 

 consecrated to his memory that singular little Moss, Buxbaumia 

 aphylla. 



H.—ON A SPECIMEN OF GYRACANTHUS OBTAINED FROM 

 THE CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONE SERIES AT BURGH 

 LEE. 



By Mr T. STOCK. 

 (Communicated Oct. 27, 1882.) 



I HAVE much pleasure in giving, at your Secretary's request, a 

 short account of the Gyracanthus, obtained during our pleasant 

 excursion to Straiton. 



Large and well-preserved fragments of the skeleton of sharks are 

 exceedingly rare in carboniferous rocks. Nevertheless, we know 

 from the spines and teeth that the waters of that age were tenanted 

 by an abundant selachian fauna, of which perhaps the most for- 

 midable genus, both from its numbers and its size, was Gyracan- 

 thus. The late Messrs Hancock and Atthey, the eminent Northum- 

 brian ichthyologists, have contributed some of the most important 

 observations yet made on that fish, and the Burgh Lee specimen is 

 confirmatory of their conclusions. From the scattered though 

 abundant material at their disposal they sought to establish the 

 following points : 1, That certain Gyracanthus spines are paired, 

 and most probably pectoral spines. They grounded this on the 

 fact that the apical extremity in many specimens had lost its point, 

 and was worn down smoothly at an angle, and that this wear was 

 always on the side opposite to the point of attachment. Further, 

 they observed that in these specimens there was some lateral as 

 well as antero-posterior curvature — that there were right and left 

 spines. Moreover, they found " large flat triangular bones 

 frequently associated with the spines, measuring sometimes 

 8|^ inches X ^\ inches wide at the widest part," which they re- 



