Homosteus, Asmuss, compared with Coccosteus, Agassiz. 47 



y. Homosteus, Asmuss, compared with Coccosteus, Agassiz. 

 By Dr K. H. Tuaquaik, F.K.S, F.G.S. [Plate HI.] 



(Read 21st November 1888.) 



The creature wliicli forms the subject of the present com- 

 munication is tlie same as that wliich was described as 

 Asterolepis by Hugh Miller in Ids " Footprints of the 

 Creator," and consequently its remains are at present better 

 known to British geologists and palaeontologists under that 

 name. Why, then, alter a name which we have used so 

 long ? is a question likely to be asked by those who have 

 not critically studied the complicated mesh in wdiich the 

 synonymy of the name " Asterolepis " is entangled. 



The genus Asterolepis was proposed by Eichwald in 1840 ^ 

 for fragmentary remains of the exoskeleton of a vertebrate 

 organism, from the Eussian Devonian rocks, allied to Pter- 

 ichthys, Ag. To these remains Agassiz also applied the 

 name Chelonichfhys, which he subsequently withdrew in 

 favour of Asterolepis as having priority ; and with them he 

 also identified generically certain large bones and plates from 

 the Lower Old Red of Dorpat, some of which were first 

 figured by Kutorga ^ as " Trionyx " and " Ichthyosauroides'' 

 and of which a considerable number, collected by Asmuss, 

 were reproduced in plaster and copies sent to Agassiz. A 

 number of these casts were figured bv Ao-assiz^ as bones 

 of " Asterolepis^ some of which are generically identical 

 with the creature of whose bones and cranial buckler many 

 fine specimens from Thurso, largely collected by Piobert 

 Dick, came into the possession of Hugh Miller. And thus 

 it was that these remains came to be figured by Hugh Miller 

 as belonging to Asterolepis, although they had no affinity to 

 the creature to which Eichwald originally gave that name, 

 their identification with which being entirely due to a 



1 "Die Thier- und Pflaiizenreste des alten rothen Sandsteins und Berg- 

 kalks im Novgorodschen Gouvernement " (Bull. Acad. Imp. St Peteisbuig, 

 tome vii., p. 78). 



- Beitriige zur Geognosie und Palaeontologie Dorpats, 1835-37. 



^ Poiss. Foss. du vieux Gres Rouge, tab. xxxii. 



