with respect to its generic or specific resemblances. The square scales 

 with which its body is covered, and which are so large in proportion to 

 the size of the animal, render it different, I believe, from any recent fish 

 which has been yet described. A patch of these scales is represented 

 Plate XVI. Fig. "l2. 



Numerous remains of fishes are found in the pyritous clay of Shepey ; 

 but in so mutilated a state, as not to allow of forming any probable 

 conjecture as to the relationship which they may bear to any existing 

 fish. 



" Our own country hath lately afforded what (says Mr. Jones) I ap- 

 prehend to be the greatest curiosity of this sort that ever yet appeared. 

 Jt is the entire figure of a bream, more than a foot in length, and of a 

 proportionable depth, with the scales, fins, and gills, fairly projecting 

 from the surface, like a sculpture in relievo, and with all the lineaments, 

 even to the most minute fibres of the tail, so complete, that the like has 

 not been seen before. It was taken from the stone quarries of Barrow, 

 in Lincolnshire, and is now, by a fortunate circumstance, in the possession 

 of the learned Mr. Green, Woodwardian Professor of Fossils in the Uni- 

 versity of Cambridge." P. 41 1; 



" Another very fine fossil fish, of a different constitution, was dis- 

 covered in a block of Leicestershire coal, at the house of the late Sir J. 

 Robinson, in Northamptonshire. It is a considerable part of the body of 

 a salmon (or rather the image of what once was its body), in a white 

 sand-tone, with the lineaments of the scales. The cavity of the body is 

 filled with coal, which is a very singular circumstance. It was lately 

 presented, by Sir George Robinson, to Sir Ashton Lever, and is now 

 .preserved in his Museum *." 



We are, however, by no means to admit of the existence of an identity 

 of species, between fossil and recent fish, in all the instances in which it 

 has been claimed. Similarity of appearance is by no means sufficient to 



* Physiological Disquisitions, &c. by William Jo^es, F. R.S, 1181, 



