TELEOSTEI. 93 



Genus GADUS, Linnaeus. 



Prof. Lankester in the year 1863 (Geologist, Vol. VI., p. 110) 

 called attention to the vertebral column and fins of a fish preserved 

 on a hardened slab of crag from Aldborough, which was thought 

 by Dr. Giinther to be probably Gadoid, and which Mr. E. T. 

 Higgins afterwards in his paper " On the Otolites of Fish" 

 (Journ. Linn. Soc. Zool., Vol. IX., p. 164, 1867) alluded to as 

 undoubtedly Gadoid. A cast of this specimen is now in the 

 Museum of Practical Geology. In the same paper Mr. E. T. 

 Higgins says : " All the Otolites from the Coralline Crag that I 

 have yet had the opportunity of examining belong, without a 

 single exception, to existing species o Gadoids, viz., Cod, 

 Whiting, Pollack, Whiting Pout, Green Cod, &c." It would 

 seem, however, that Mr. Higgins was afterwards less certain as to 

 these species, for Prof. Prestwich (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., Vol. 

 XX VII., p. 132, 1871), on the authority of Mr. Higgins, gives 

 the following as the forms of Gadoid otoliths which had been 

 recognized in the Coralline Crag : Common Cod, Green Cod, 

 Power Cod: probably identical with living species : Pollack, 

 Whitina, Whiting Pout, nearly allied but not identical. Messrs. 

 E. and'A. Bell (Proc. Geol. Assoc., Vol. II., p. 202, 1872) sub- 

 sequently added the Haddock to this list. 



A large number of otoliths from the English Crags have passed 

 through my hands, and all seem to belong, as Mr. Higgins said, to 

 Gadoid fishes, but I have not been able to identify from the 

 Coralline Crag all the forms above noticed. However, it is only 

 right to say that the specimens on which Mr. Higgins based his 

 determinations are now with him in Australia. 



The larger otoliths are comparatively rare in the Coralline Crag, 

 whilst the small ones (probably young) are much more numerous, 

 and many of them seem to have been smoothed over and denuded, 

 as if partially digested by other fishes. 



GADUS MORRHUA, LINNJEUS. 



(Cod-fish.) 

 PLATE X., FIGS. 50, b. 



Although Mr. Higgins (Journ. Linn. Soc. Zoo!., Vol. IX., p. 164, 

 1867) seemed tolerably certain that he had recognized the otoliths 

 of the Cod-fish in the Coralline Crag, I have been unable to find 

 any specimen in either the Coralline or Red Crag referable to 

 this species ; but Mr. J. Reeve, of the Norwich Museum, has two 

 otoliths from the Lower Bed of the Norwich Crag at Bramerton 

 whi-h undoubtedly belong to Gadus morrhua. 



The occurrence of jaws arid other bones of this species in the 

 Forest-bed at several localities has already been recorded in 

 the fcuivey Memoir (Vert. Forest Bed, p. 127, 1882). 



