144 THE BANK ACCOUNTANT. 



of beach, hardly more than forty square yards in 

 extent. 



' Of all the fossils of these beds, the one with the 

 tuberculated surface seems least akin to anything that 

 exists at present. I have split up many hundred 

 nodules containing remains of this animal, for in the 

 times of the Old Red Sandstone it must have existed by 

 myriads in this part of Scotland. All the larger ones I 

 have found broken and imperfect the nodules in gen- 

 eral are too small to contain more than detached parts of 

 these, and, besides, the hard plates of the animal, separ- 

 ated apparently by open sutures, seem to have offered a 

 less equal degree of resistance to the accumulating 

 weight than those continuous coats of scales, which 

 covered the various fish of the period, and which seem 

 in consequence to have been thrown less out of their 

 original forms. It is only the smaller varieties that I 

 find perfect enough to furnish me with anything like an 

 adequate idea of the proper shape of the animal. In 

 these, however, though the general outline be better 

 preserved, the plates are invariably obscure. In the 

 larger specimens, on the contrary, they are as well de- 

 fined as the bits of a dissected map, but" I lack skill to 

 piece them together. The form of the body seems to 

 have somewhat resembled that of a tortoise, the plates, 

 like those of that animal, received their accessions of 

 growth at the edges which form the fins of the fish, the 

 body of the creature, as shown by the plates, must have 

 preserved considerable thickness at the sides. I have 

 found specimens from which I infer that a transverse 

 section must have formed an oval. At the shoulders of 

 the animal there were two arm-like fins or wings. All 

 my better specimens agree in the form and position of 

 these. Each terminated in a sharp point, and there 



