128 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



of all the other fins. On the anterior margins of all the fins 

 well-marked fulcra are observable. 



I am indebted to the kindness of Mr John Henderson, 

 Curator of the Phrenological Museum, Edinburgh, for a 

 specimen from the Water of Leith, near Juniper Green 

 (Wardie Shales), which is probably referable to the present 

 species. Unfortunately the scales and fin-rays are so dis- 

 located and jumbled up, that it is hardly possible to say more 

 regarding it than that the scales, in configuration and sculp- 

 ture, closely resemble those of Professor Duns's specimen. 



Remarks. — Although the dentition of this species is still 

 unknown, its position in the genus Elonichthys seems to be 

 indicated by its general aspect, the configuration of its scales, 

 and the structure and position of its fins. Its most salient 

 peculiarities are the very minute denticulation of the pos- 

 terior margins of the scales, and the serration of the posterior 

 margins of the joints of the fin-rays — characters which, when 

 taken togetxier, distinguish it from every other species with 

 which I am acquainted. 



XVII. Evidence as to the Predaceous Habits of the Larger 

 Palceoniscidce. By K. H. Teaquair, Esq., M.D., 

 F.G.S., Keeper of the Natural History Collections in 

 the Museum of Science and Art, Edinburgh. 



(Eead 29tli May 1879.) 



That the larger fishes of the Carboniferous and other 

 periods were, like those of the present day, in the habit of 

 feeding upon their smaller brethren, is a fact long ago well 

 attested by the frequency with which scales and small bones 

 occur in coprolites, which, in our own district, constitute so 

 abundant a fossil wherever fish remains are to be found. 

 The mail-clad skins of the smaller Ganoids seem to have 

 formed no protection against the powerful jaws and conical 

 teeth of their superiors in bulk. The small jaw, from the 

 German Kupferschiefer, named by Mtinster Glohulodus elegans, 

 were discovered in a coprolite.* The original specimen of 



* Beitrage zur Petrefactenkunde, v., 1842, p. 47. 



