A HISTORY OF WARWICKSHIRE 



formation a tooth of a lung-fish was described in 1898 by Professor 

 L. Miall as Ceratodus /tevissimus, being supposed to represent a new 

 species. In the British Museum Catalogue of Fossil Fishes 1 it was 

 identified with the continental C. kaupi, but a tooth in Mr. Brodie's 

 collection subsequently led Dr. Woodward* to believe that the original 

 determination was correct. If this be so, C. Itevissimus is known only 

 by one tooth from Ripple in Worcestershire and a second from Shrewley. 

 The genus, it may be mentioned, survives in Queensland in the form of 

 the barramunda or Burnet salmon (C.forsteri). 



Another survival of a Palaeozoic type in the Warwickshire Keuper 

 is a fish originally described as Palczoniscus superstes, but now known as 

 Dictyopyge superstes. It was described by the late Sir Philip Egerton on 

 the evidence of the imperfect trunk of a fish in Mr. Brodie's collection. 

 The same collection has afforded evidence of a species of the widely 

 spread Triassic genus Semionotus which appears peculiar to the Warwick- 

 shire Keuper, and has been named S. brodiei by Mr. E. T. Newton. 3 



To the same family (Semionotidce) belongs a fish from the Lower 

 Lias of Stratford-on-Avon, described as long ago as 1835 or 1836 by 

 Agassiz on the evidence of a nearly complete specimen, of which all 

 trace has now unfortunately been lost. A small fish belonging to a 

 totally different family (Eugnathidez) originally described by the writer 

 last mentioned on the evidence of a specimen from Barrow-on-Soar, 

 Leicestershire, as Eugnatbus hastingsice (in honour of the then Marchioness 

 of Hastings) is also apparently represented in the British Museum collec- 

 tion by an imperfect specimen from the Lower Lias of Wilmcote near 

 Stratford-on-Avon. 



Passing on to the consideration of the labyrinthodont remains, per- 

 haps the most interesting is the unique skull in the Warwick Museum 

 from the Permian of Kenilworth described in 1849 as Labyrintbodon 

 bucklandi, but made the type of a new genus by Huxley in 1859 as 

 Dasyceps bucklandi. The animal to which it belonged was apparently 

 allied to the Carboniferous genus Antbracosaurus. An excellent descrip- 

 tion of the Keuper labyrinthodonts of the county will be found in a 

 paper by Professor L. C. Miall published in the Quarterly Journal of the 

 Geological Society* These are referred to four species, namely Mastodon- 

 saurus giganteus, M. pachygnatbus, Labyrintbodon leptognathus and Diadeto- 

 gnatbus varvicensis. Of these the first, if rightly identified, is common 

 to the Keuper of the continent, but the other three are peculiar to the 

 county. Nor is this all, for the generic name Labyrinthodon owes its 

 name to a Warwickshire specimen, as also does Diadetognatbus, the 

 Former having been proposed by Owen in 1841, and the latter by Miall 

 in 1874. The names Labyrintbodon laniarius and L. -ventricosus have 

 also been applied by Owen to labyrinthodont teeth in the Warwick 

 Museum, but the generic affinity of these is doubtful. Yet another 

 rm, from the Keuper of Leamington, was named by Owen Labyrintho- 



1 Part ii. p. 270. * Ibid. p. 282. 



Quo*. Joum. G,ol. &r. *liii. 439 (,887). * Vol. xxx. 417 (1874). 



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