34 CATALOGUE OF TYPES AND FIGURED SPECIMENS 



There can be no doubt that this fish is new to science 

 as a species ; the only question remaining for consideration 

 is that of the genus to which it should be referred. The 

 Carboniferous genera to which it seems most closely allied 

 are Elonichthys and AcroJepis ; but it is excluded from both 

 by the very small size and thinness of the scales, and more 

 especially from Acrolepis by the rays of the pectoral fin being 

 articulated to their origins. 



So far as the smallness of the scales and the arrange- 

 ment of the fins is concerned, there is a very considerable 

 resemblance between the present fish and the early mesozoic 

 genus Myriolepis, as described originally by the late Sir Philip 

 Egerton/'^ and more recently by Mr. A. Smith Woodward.! 

 But the condition, as to articulation, of the rays of the 

 pectoral fin of Myriolepis does not seem yet to be known, 

 and should its principal rays turn out not to be articulated 

 up to their origins, as in the present fish, there is little 

 doubt that a new genus must be constituted for the reception 

 of the latter. 



Though it does strike one as slightly improbable that 

 the same genus of Palaeoniscidae should persist from Car- 

 boniferous to Triassic times, I feel the setting up of new 

 genera in this already most extensive family, without absolute 

 demonstration of its necessity, becoming more and more 

 distasteful. I therefore refer this interesting Irish Car- 

 boniferous Palaeoniscid to the genus Myriolepis, under the 

 name of M. Hihernica ; though it must be distinctly under- 

 stood that this reference is only provisional, and awaiting 

 confirmation, or the reverse, by the further development of 

 our knowledge of the type species of the genus. 



=:= Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, xx., 1864, p. 2. 



t " The Fossil Fishes of the Hawkesbury Beds at Gosforth (New 

 South Wales)," pp. 7-1 1. 



