Mr Etheridge on a Small Naticiform Gasteropod. 161 



To the late Mr Robert Dick, of Thurso, Hugh Miller was 

 indebted for many of his most valuable specimens from the 

 Caithness Flags, and these, along with the others which passed 

 into the possession of the late Mr John Miller, are, I am glad 

 to say, safely under cover in the Museum of Science and Art. 



Here we must for the present take leave of our subject. 

 Much remains still to be done both as regards general research 

 into the structure and classification of palaeozoic fishes, and as 

 regards the rectification of species, and the compiling of reli- 

 able catalogues of those which occur as well in Scotland as 

 in other divisions of our common country of Great Britain. 

 The work must, however, necessarily be slow, as nothing is 

 more injurious to the cause of palaeontology than undue haste, 

 whether in descriptive work or in attempted generalisation. 



I fear I have wearied you out with long names and tire- 

 some abstracts and lists of what to most people are very dry 

 and technical works. But my task is accomplished if I have 

 succeeded in clearly laying before you the facts that Scotland 

 presents an unrivalled field for the study of palaeozoic ich- 

 thyology, and that the study of Scottish fossil fishes has, in 

 former days at least, occupied the attention of men of eminence 

 and power. And more especially, I have tried to impress 

 upon you that palaeontology, however intimately connected 

 with geology, is neither a part of geology nor a science by 

 itself, but is simply a part of biology, and that the study of 

 fossil organisms must always be thoroughly unsatisfactory 

 unless they are dealt with according to the same method as 

 recent ones, and by men of the same biological training. 



I. On the Occurrence of a Small Naticiform Gasteropod, 

 showing Colour-Bands, in the Cement Stone Group of 

 Fifeshire. By R. Etheridge, Jun., Esq., President. 

 [Plate III.] 



(Read 21st January 1880.) 



Introduction. — In a paper on the " Invertebrate Fauna of 

 the Wardie Shales,"* I described, amongst other fossils, a 



* Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc, Lond., xxxiv., p. 18. 



