in the Neighbourhood of Edinburgh. 197 
SECTION IX._THE FISH OF RECENT TIMES CALCULATED TO EXPLAIN THE 
SAUROID CHARACTER OF THE OSSEOUS REMAINS DISCOVERED AT BUR- 
DIEHOUSE. 
The conclusion arrived at by M. Acass1z could not but be re- 
garded, as portending a splendid accession to our knowledge con- 
cerning the immense animals which lived in so early an epoch as 
that from which our coal-fields date their origin. The monsters 
which roamed among the more ancient waters of our planet, did 
not possess for purposes of locomotion, paddles or feet like those 
of the reptiles of later epochs ;—they were vested with fins, yet 
still exhibited along with the attributes of fish, a sauroid form 
of teeth, and a sauroid structure of the larger bones, in connec- 
tion with the splendent scales of the crocodile, or gavial. 
From these considerations a natural question arose,—Does 
any animal yet exist upon the surface of the globe, with which 
a monster of so mixed a character can be compared? A reply 
has been given in the affirmative. 
Among the countless numbers of animated races long since 
extinct, there would still appear to be some approximating tribes, 
which linger on the present surface of the globe even during its 
very altered state. These might have been called into life un- 
der local or partial circumstances of subsistence, or habitat, alike 
common to some condition of a primeval state of our planet. But 
such concurrent circumstances, whatever they may be, we have 
not always the means of ascertaining. 
It is sufficient to state, that, in reference to fish which pos- 
sess important characteristics in common with those of extinct 
tribes, M. Acass1z, for purposes of comparison and analogy, has 
made a very diligent quest, as may be shewn by some striking il- 
lustrations which appear among his Ichthyological researches. 
This naturalist, in establishing among his ganoid order of 
fish a sauroid family, had referred, as a type of it, to a recent 
sauroid fish, the principal species of which dwell among the lakes 
