202 FOSSIL FISHES. 



SECTION XIII. 



FOSSIL FISHES. 



The history of Fossil Fishes is the Branch of Palaso- 

 logy which has hitherto received least attention, in conse- 

 quence of the imperfect state of our knowledge of existing 



three inches wide. These footsteps follow one another in pairs, at intervals 

 of fourteen inches from pair to pair, each pair being in the same line. Both 

 large and small steps have the great toes alternately on the right and left 

 side ; each has the print of five toes, and the first, or great toe is bent in- 

 wards like a thumb. The fore and hind-foot are nearly similar in form, 

 though they differ so greatly in size. 



On the same slabs are other tracks, of smaller and differently shaped feet, 

 armed with nails. Many of these (PI. 26') resemble the impressions ou the 

 sandstone of Dumfries, and arc apparently the steps of Tortoises. 



Professor Kaup has proposed the provisional name of Chirothcriuin for the 

 great unknown animal that formed the larger footsteps, from the distant 

 resemblance, both of the fore and hind-feet, to the impression of a human 

 hand; and he conjectures that they may have been derived from some quad- 

 ruped allied to the Marsupialia. The presence of two small fossil mammalia 

 related to the Opossum, in the Oolite formation of Stonesficld, and the ap- 

 proximation of this order to the class of Reptiles, which has already been 

 alluded to, (page 64, note,) are circumstances which give probability to such 

 a conjecture. In the Kangaroo, the first toe of the fore-foot is set obliquely 

 to the others, like a thumb, and the disproportion between the fore and hind 

 feet is also very great. 



A fartlier account of these footsteps has been published by Dr. Sickler, 

 in a letter to Blumenbach, 1834. Our figure, (PI. 26',) is copied from a 

 plate that accompanies this letter; on comparing it with a large slab, co- 

 vered with similar footmarks, from the same quarries, lately placed in the 

 British Museum, (1835) I find that the representations, both of the large 

 and small footsteps, correspond most accurately. The hind-foot (PI. 

 26",) is drawn from one on this slab. PI. 26'" is drawn from a plaster 



