Addition to Fish Fauna of Oil Shales of Edinhurghshire. 101 



shale, and had the satisfaction of uncovering a remarkably 

 well-preserved specimen of a fossil fish, the scales of the 

 body and the fins being seen in their natural position. Un- 

 fortunately, however, the piece containing the head had been 

 broken off before the bit of water-worn shale fell into my 

 hands. The fish (specimen exhibited) belongs to the genus 

 Elonichthys, and, so far as can be judged in the absence of 

 the head, the species is closely allied to, if not identical with, 

 E. Dunsii (Traq.). I have since obtained other specimens of 

 fossil fishes from the same shale. 



Among the many ichthyic remains which have from time 

 to time rewarded my search among the " blaes " heaps of the 

 oil district, several of which were noticed by Dr Traquair in 

 a paper read before this Society, the first place in point of 

 rarity, and possibly also of scientific interest, belongs to a 

 specimen of Ctenodus, found at one of the shale pits near 

 West Calder, which forms more especially the subject of the 

 present notice. 



Ctenod.us, so far as yet known, is a wholly Carboniferous 

 genus, while the records of its occurrence in strata older than 

 the coal measures are exceedingly few. Dr Traquair, in a 

 paper published in the Geological Magazine on ''Fish Remains 

 from the Blackband Ironstone of Borough Lee," — a por- 

 tion of the Carboniferous Limestone Series — described a 

 new species (C. angustatus) possessing exceedingly minute 

 palatal teeth. He also noticed a fragmentary tooth of a 

 larger size from the same locality. With regard to its 

 occurrence in the lowest division of the Carboniferous 

 system, namely, the Calciferous Sandstone Series, Professor 

 Agassiz gave the name C. Rolcrtsoni to a tooth from 

 Burdiehouse, but, as he did not describe it, and as the 

 specimen is lost, it is impossible to determine its specific 

 identity. The notice of this species is only interesting, 

 therefore, as the first record of the occurrence of Ctcnodus in 

 rocks of Calciferous Sandstone age. In a paper read before 

 the Geological Society of London, in June 1880, by Mr 

 Kirkby, on the " Zones of Marine Fossils in the Calciferous 

 Sandstone Series of Fifeshire," the author states that at 2120 

 feet below the Carboniferous limestone, Ctcnodus sp. occurred ; 



