Dr R. H. Traqiiair on Fossil Fishes from Oil Shales. 119 



Leith near Juniper Green, in Edinburghshire ; Burntisland 

 and near Anstruther, in Fifeshire. 



I?i the Carhomferous Limestone Series — Loanhead, West 

 Edge near Gilmerton, and Borough Lee, in Edinburghshire ; 

 Possil, in Lanarkshire. 



(3.) Elonichthys tenuiserratus, sp. nov. 



Among the fish remains collected by the Geological Survey 

 of Scotland — for the privilege of examining which I am in- 

 debted to the kindness of Professors Ramsay and Geikie — I 

 observed a small portion of shale from Hermand, near West 

 Calder, covered with dislocated scales of an apparently new 

 species of Elonichthys. Subsequently ]\Ir Stock confided to 

 me for description a specimen contained in an ironstone 

 nodule, which he found on the bank of a shale pit in the 

 same district, and which jDresents us with the head and 

 greater part of the body of a fish of the same species, the 

 caudal and anal fins, however, being deficient, and the body 

 scales jumbled up and squeezed together. 



Description. — The head in Mr Stock's specimen is 2 

 inches in length, and, judging from the usual proportion 

 which the head bears to the total in allied species, the 

 entire length of the fish cannot have originally been less 

 than 9 inches. The cranial roof-bones are minutely and 

 closely granulated. The external facial bones are covered 

 with very fine and closely placed raised striae or ridges, 

 which tend to become irregularly ramified and intercalated. 

 The lower margin of the maxilla bears a number of large 

 conical laniary teeth, w^hose apices are, however, concealed by 

 the matrix ; and besides these, a few of the more externally 

 placed smaller teeth are also visible. About ten branchios- 

 tegal plates may be counted, passing from the interoperculum 

 round beneath the powerfully developed mandible. 



The pectoral fin is acuminate in shape, and equals in 

 length two-thirds that of the head ; about twenty rays may 

 be counted in it, but it is also evident that the whole of the 

 more delicate rays on its medial aspect are not exhibited. 

 Excepting the first two or perhaps three on its lateral edge, 

 which are comparatively short, and do not reach the apex. 



