THE OLD RED SANDSTONE. 51 
exceedingly curious. In one, a coprolite still rests in the ab- 
domen ; and a common botanist’s microscope shows it thickly 
speckled over with minute scales, the indigestible exuviz of 
fish on which the animal had preyed. In the abdomen of 
another we find a few minute pebbles — just as pebbles are 
occasionally found in the stomach of the cod— which had 
been swallowed by the creature attached to its food. Is there 
nothing wonderful in the fact, that men should be learning at 
this time of day how the fishes of the Old Red Sandstone 
lived, and that there were some of them rapacious enough 
not to be over nice in their eating ? 
The under part of the creature is still very imperfectly . 
known : it had its central lozenge-shaped plate, like that on 
the under side of the Pterichthys, but of greater elegance, 
(see Plate III., fig. 3,) round which the other plates were 
ranged. ‘ What an appropriate ornament, if set in gold!” 
said Dr. Buckland, on seeing a very beautiful specimen of 
this central lozenge in the interesting collection of Professor 
Traill of Edinburgh, — ‘** What an appropriate ornament for a 
lady geologist!” There are two marked peculiarities in the 
jaws of the Coccosteus, as shown in most of the specimens, 
illustrative of the lower part of the creature, which I have 
yet seen. The teeth, instead of being fixed in sockets, 
like those of quadrupeds and reptiles, or merely placed 
on the bone, like those of fish of the common varieties, seem 
to have been cut out of the solid, like the teeth of a saw 
or the teeth in the mandibles of the beetle, or in the nippers 
of the lobster, (Plate III., fig. 4;) and there appears to have 
been something strangely anomalous in the position of the 
jaws — something too anomalous, perhaps, to be regarded as 
proven by the evidence of the specimens yet found, but which 
may be mentioned with the view of directing attention to it 
