DESCRIPTIVE REMARKS. lix 
Coccosteus decipiens, Pl, xxxiii., fig. 3, is another extraordinary 
fish, which was provided with a cuirass of bony plates encasing the 
head and body, the vertebral column and other bones being cartila- 
ginous. 
Pterichthys (winged fish) is perhaps still more remarkable, and less 
fish-like. Five species of this genus have been found in the Old Red 
Sandstone of Scotland; its body was also encased in hard bony plates, 
and was provided with spine-like jointed appendages which sometimes 
spread out at right angles and were probably connected with the pec- 
toral fins. 
These three genera, with some others, are grouped in the family 
Cephalaspide ; but as Professor Huxley remarks, the position it should 
occupy in the classification of fish is not readily determinable. 
The belief as to the fresh-water origin of the typical Old Red Sand- 
stone is greatly strengthened by the character of the fish remains; the 
closest affinity to these fossils, amongst living examples, being found 
in certain fishes inhabiting the rivers and lakes of North America and 
Africa.* 
We now arrive at the consideration of the Devonian type of fossils 
as observed in parts of Devonshire and Cornwall. Allusion has already 
been made to the tripartite division of this group (ante p. lii.), and to 
the question whether some of the strata of the upper division should 
not be incorporated with the lower portion of the Carboniferous series. 
These fossils in several respects show an intermediate character 
between the Silurian and Carboniferous group; in the lower beds of 
the series they are closely allied to those of the Silurian formation, and 
in the upper strata to that of the Carboniferous, yet they are believed 
to be sufficiently distinct to constitute an independent group. Accord- 
ing to Mr. Etheridget ‘ there are 3838 species of fossils known to occur 
in the Devonian rocks of North and South Devon and Cornwall.” 
In the uppermost division at Pilton, Barnstaple, &c. (according to 
Sir C. Lyell), “thirty-six species out of 110, that is, more than one- 
fifth, are common to the overlying Carboniferous rocks.’ t 
The plant stems called Anorria of North Devon appear to be iden- 
tical or closely allied to the Sagenaria of the South of Ireland; accord- 
ing to Professor Goeppert, the genus Anorria of Sternberg is only a 
form of Sagenaria or Lepidodendron, and his opinion is, that Anorria 
imbricata of the Lower Carboniferous rocks is identical with Sagenarva 
Veltheimiana of Sternberg ; the species to which we originally referred 
the plant from Kiltorcan, which has been since named by Professor 
Schimper, S. Bailyana. The plants occurring in such profusion in 
more shaley beds, at Tallow Bridge, county Waterford, were also 
referred to S. Velthe’miana, a determination which has been con- 
* Huxley, Mem. Geol. Survey, Dec. x. 
+ Journal Geological. Society of London, Vol. xxiii., p. 679. 
¢ Student’s Elements of Geology (1871). 
