OF FOSSIL FISHES. 155 



the bodies of several species of fossil fish, from the lias at 

 Lyme Regis. Dr. Hibbert has shown that the strata of 

 fresh-water limestone, in the lower region of the coal for- 

 mation, at Burdie House, near Edinburgh, are abundantly 

 interspersed with Coprolites, derived from fishes of that 

 early era ; and Sir Philip Egerton has found similar foecal 

 remains, mixed with scales of the Megalichthys, and fresh- 

 water shells, in the coal formation of Newcastle-under^ 

 Lyne. In 1832, Mr. W. C. Trevelyan recognised Copro- 

 lites in the centre of nodules of clay ironstone, that abound 

 in a low cliff composed of shale, belonging to the coal for- 

 mation at Newhaven, near Leith. I visited the spot, with 

 this gentleman and Lord Greenock, in September, 1834, 

 and found these nodules strewed so thickly upon the shore 

 that a few minutes sufficed to collect more specimens than 

 I could carry; many of these contained a fossil fish, or 

 fragment of a plant, but the greater number had for their 

 nucleus, a Coprolite, exhibiting an internal spiral structure ; 

 they were probably derived from voracious fishes, whose 

 bones are found in the same stratum. These nodules take 

 a beautiful polish, and have been applied by the lapidaries 

 of Edinburgh to make tables, letter presses, and ladies' or- 

 naments, under the name of Beetle stones, from their sup- 

 posed insect origin. Lord Greenock has discovered, be- 

 tween the laminsB of a block of coal, from the neighbour- 

 hood of Edinburgh, a mass of petrified intestines distended 

 with Coprohte, and surrounded with the scales of a fish, 

 which Professor Agassiz refers to the Megalichthys. 



This distinguished naturalist has recently ascertained that 



that the form of the Coprolites within the Macropoma most nearly resem- 

 ble those engraved, PI. 15, Figs. 8,9, of the present work : he also con- 

 jectures that the more tortuous kinds, (PI. 15, Figs. 5,7,) long known by 

 the name of Juli, and supposed to be fossil fir cones, may have been derived 

 from fishes of the Shark family, (Ptychodus) whose large palatal teeth (PI. 

 27./) abound in the same localities of the chalk formation with them, at 

 Steyning and Hamsey. 



