PALEONTOLOGY 



and Burgehill. A tooth in the British Museum from the upper Ripple 

 has been described as a new species of barramunda, under the name of 

 Ceratodus Icevissimus, but is now regarded as probably identical with the 

 continental C. kaupi. The existing barramunda, it may be observed, is 

 a large air-breathing fish restricted to the rivers of Queensland. A fossil 

 fish from the Keuper of Bromsgrove, now preserved in the Museum of 

 the Geological Survey, has been described as a new genus and species 

 of ganoid under the name of Deuteronotus cyphus, but is now believed 

 to be referable to some member of the genus Chlithrolepis. The list 

 of fishes closes with Phabodus brodiei, a primitive shark of the group 

 Ichthyotomi, named after the late Rev. P. B. Brodie. This species is 

 known only by two teeth in the British Museum, one of which (the 

 type) was obtained from the Upper Keuper of Warwickshire, and the 

 second from the Lower Keuper of Pendock. 



So far as the writer is aware, reptilian remains do not appear to 

 have been obtained from the Worcestershire Keuper, but certain tracks 

 met with in these beds may have been made by the Triassic lizard 

 Rhynchosaurus. From the Lower Lias of Brockeridge and Defford 

 Commons, which are situated on the southern side of the county near 

 Tewkesbury, numerous bones of Ichthyosaurus, and perhaps also of Plesio- 

 saurus, have been obtained, but these reptilian remains seem never to 

 have been specifically determined. The British Museum has, however, 

 part of the skeleton of an Ichthyosaurus from near Tewkesbury which has 

 been assigned to Ichthyosaurus tenuirostris, and may possibly have been 

 obtained in Worcestershire. In any case, it may be taken as certain that 

 these Worcestershire Ichthyosauri belong to the same species as those 

 whose remains are so common in the Lower Lias of Dorsetshire. 



The only other vertebrate remains met with in the county appear 

 to be those of Pleistocene mammals from the river gravels of the Severn 

 valley. These doubtless belong to the ordinary species of the epoch. 

 Mr. D. Mackintosh^ recording the mammoth [Elephas primigenius), 

 woolly rhinoceros (Rhinoceros antiquitatis) , and reindeer [Rangifer tarandus) 

 from a bed of estuarine sand and gravel, and the straight-tusked elephant 

 {Elephas antiquus) and the Pleistocene hippopotamus {Hippopotamus am- 

 phibius major) from an underlying deposit. 



* Quart, Journ. Geo/. Soc, vol. xxxvi. p. i8i (1880). 



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