liv. PREFATORY REMARKS 



physes. Now, whether the skeletons discovered in Caithness 

 by Mr Peach resembled Coccosteus in this, or whether they 

 had truly ossified vertebral centra, we are as yet not acquainted 

 with the data upon which to decide ; but the discovery appears, 

 at any rate, to be a honafide one. My friend Mr Symonds 

 writes, — " Mr Peach has found a fish allied to the Dipterus, 

 with well-ossified vertebrae, in the Middle Old Red of the north 

 of Scotland. Sir P. Egerton has examined the specimen, and 

 writes me word that it is so." If, indeed, these vertebrae are 

 well ossified, there is here a complete revolution in our ideas of 

 the ganoids of the Old Red. For, if we find some with bony 

 skeletons, the law, hitherto accepted as invariable, that the hard 

 indestructible dermo-skeletons of that period were necessarily 

 connected with frail, perishable, cartilaginous vertebrae, ceases 

 to he. "We should, indeed, almost accept it as presumptive 

 evidence that all might have possessed bony skeletons, which 

 have only not been preserved, did we not find, as Professor 

 Huxley clearly shows, that among the six forms which he 

 accepts as true ganoids in the present day there are amazing 

 difierences in this respect. " In this small group," he says, 

 "Nature seems to have amused herself with working out 

 every possible variety of endo-skeleton and exo-skeleton. 

 Lepidosteus has a greatly-developed exo-skeleton, and the 

 most Salamandroid vertebra known among fishes. Polypte- 

 rus has an equally well-developed exo-skeleton, and a well- 

 ossified but piscine vertebral column," &c. &c. With such 

 living examples before us, what can we say, but that it is 

 not easy to set limits to the discursive powers of Nature, or 

 rather, of Nature's God 1 



Nothing very new, we believe, has appeared in behalf of 



