450 Miscellaneous. 



nothing but mention of a set of plncoid teeth, upper and under, of 

 a species oi 2Ii/Jinf>(ttis, which I remember to have extracted from 

 the remnants of another old dried Eay on the beach at the same time, 

 and which I finally deposited in Prof. Huxley's hands in the ^Museum 

 of Economic CJeology. What became of the piece of Mitriosteon I 

 have forgotten altogether. 



But that it did come from ilie snovt of a Ha;/, and not of a Pristis, 

 the little preparation I now send you seems to confirm. 



In this preparation (taken from a youn(j Thornback, Avhich I 

 found on the beacli at Budleigh-Salterton on the 12th May) you 

 Avill see your Mi/riosteon in miniature. 



If you hold it up between j-ou and the light, you Avill see, halfway 

 np, on its surface the radiated osselet structures Avith a common 

 lens, and with a higher power the veritable osselet structure of 

 your Mifriosfeo)), 



Now, if .'you look into the cavity of the cranium (a portion of 

 which still adheres to the snout), you will observe that this cavity 

 is continued on into the My r lost eon ; and a little imagination will 

 enable 3'ou to sec that this cavity represents the cribriform plate of 

 the ethmoid bone prolonged into a conical tube, the holes of which, 

 for the issue of the olfactory nerves, may be the holes which exist 

 on each side of your Myrio^teon Hujyinm. 



GeoyrapMcal DistrihiUion of Australian WJiales. 



I have just received a pair of the car-bones of Poescopla Novee 

 Zelandic and some blades of the baleen of Bulana maryinafa, 

 direct from the sea near Swan River, showing that both these spe- 

 cies are common to the west coast of Australia and Xcw Zealand. — 

 J. E. Gray. 



On the Stniciitre of a Fern-stem from the Lower Eocene of Heme Bay, 

 and on its Allies, recent and fosiiil. Bv W. CARRVTUEns, Esq., 

 F.L.S., F.G.8. 



The author described the characters of the fossil-stem of a Fern 

 obtained by George Dowker, Esq., F.G.S., from the beach at Heme 

 Baj-, and stated that in its structure it agreed most closely with the 

 living Osmunda reyalis, and certainly belonged to the Osmundaceffi. 

 The broken petioles show a single crescentic vascular bundle. The 

 section of the true stem shows a white parenchymatous medulla, a 

 narrow vascular cylinder interrupted by long slender meshes from 

 which the vascular bundles of the ])ctiolcs spring, and a parenchy- 

 matous cortical layer. The author described the arrangement of 

 these parts in detail, and indicated their agreement with the same 

 parts in O.-imunda reyalis. He did not venture to refer the Fern, to 

 which this stem had belonged, positively to the genus Osmunda, 

 but preferred describing it as an Osmund I tcs, under the name of 

 0. Dotvleri. The specimen was silicified ; and the author stated that 



