CHAP. ix. EYES OF THE COCCOSTEUS. 107 



saying, ' Poor fellow, how I pity you ! Why don't you 

 put on more clothes ? You will never be right till you 

 get a thicker jacket to keep out the heat.' 'Well, 

 Cocco,' replies his comrade, ' I am very warm already. 

 This coat of mine is horrid hot, and I do not see how it 

 would mend the matter to put on another!' This 

 would be the proper answer to scalding seas, oceans of 

 hot water, and fish with thick coats to keep out the 

 heat ! " 



From this time forward Eobert Dick sent all the new 

 fossils that he found to Hugh Miller for the purpose of 

 illustrating his books on geology, especially that describ- 

 ing The Old Red Sandstone. He sent numerous speci- 

 mens of the Coccosteus, the Diplopterus, the Asterolepis, 

 the Dipterus, the Osteolepis, the Glyptolepis, and many 

 other remains of ancient fishes, now found only in a 

 fossil state. In 1845, he sent Hugh Miller the first 

 specimen of the Coccosteus minor, which he had found 

 near Thurso. " It was from one of Mr. Dick's specimens 

 of this species," says Mr. Miller, " that I first determined 

 the true position of the eyes of the Coccosteus a position 

 which some of my lately found ichthyolites conclusively 

 demonstrate, and which Agassiz, in his restoration, 

 deceived by ill-preserved specimens, has fixed at a point 

 considerably more lateral and posterior, and where eyes 

 would have been of greatly less use to the animal." 



In his future editions of The Old Red Sandstone 

 Hugh Miller found it necessary to make many altera- 

 tions in the text, consequent upon the observations and 

 discoveries of Robert Dick. In his preface to the third 



