ICHTHYOPATOLITES, OR FOSSIL FISH TRACKS. 107 



left, groping in all directions with these rays as 

 if in search of small crabs ; their great heads and 

 bodies seem to throw hardly any weight on these slender 

 rays or feet, being suspended in water, and having their 

 weight further diminished by their swimming-bladder. 

 During these movements the gurnards resembled insects 

 running along the sand. When M. Deslongchamps 

 moved in the water the fish swam away rapidly to the 

 extremity of the pond; when he stood still they re- 

 sumed their ambulatorv movement and came between 

 his legs. On dissection we find these three anterior 

 rays on each pectoral fin to be supported each, with 

 strong muscular apparatus to direct their movements, 

 apart from the muscles that are connected with the 

 smaller rays of the pectoral fin. 



Dr. Buckland then stated that Miss Potts, of Chester, 

 had sent him a large flagstone from a coal- shaft at 

 Mostyn, bearing impressions which he supposed to be 

 the trackway of some fish crawling along the bottom by 

 means of the anterior rays of its pectoral fins. There 

 were no indications of feet, but only scratches sjan- 

 metrically disposed on each side of a space that may 

 have been covered by the body of the fish whilst making 

 progress by pressing its fin-bones on the bottom. As 

 yet no footsteps of reptiles or of any animals more 

 highly organised than fishes have been found in strata 

 older than those which belong to the triassic or new red 

 sandstone series, of which the cheirotherium of 

 Germany and Cheshire, and the ornithicnites of Con- 

 necticut, are notorious examples. The abundant remains 

 of fossil fishes armed with strong bony spines, and of 

 other fishes allied to the gurnard, in strata of carboni- 

 ferous and old red sandstone series, would lead us to 

 expect the frequent occurrence of impressions made by 



