On Fossil Fishes from Caithness. 479 



Paracymoriza. 



Type P. vagalis, Wlk. (^Oligostigma). 



The above generic name is proposed for Lederer's Cymo- 

 riza, the species of which are by no means congeneric with 

 Guenee's original genus of tlie same name. 



LIX. — On the Fossil Fishes found at Achanarras Qdirry^ 

 Caithness. By R. H. Traquair, M.D., F.R.S. 



About a mile to the west of the well-known pavingstone 

 quarries of Spital Hill, and nearly three miles south of Hal- 

 kirk, in Caithness, is the summit of a lesser elevation, the 

 Hill of Achanarras ; and on the slope of this hill, very near 

 the top, is a small quarry, the fossil tish-remains occurring in 

 which form the subject of the present short communication. 



The comparatively few feet of rock exposed in this quarry 

 afford a remarkable assemblage of fossil fishes, specimens of 

 which do not occur in the older collections from the Scottish 

 Old Red Sandstone ; and, so far as I am aware, Achanarras 

 as a locality for such remains has hardly yet been noticed in 

 print*. 



The first intimation I had of the existence of this locality 

 was from Dr. Marcus Gunn, a Caithness man, but now a 

 Avell-known London oculist, who some years ago brought me 

 some specimens of a strange little fossil vertebrate from the 

 quarry in question, which some who had seen it were inclined 

 to compare to a " baby Coccosteus.^^ Subsequently Dr. 

 Gunn's cousin, Mr. John Gunn, Assistant Secretary to the 

 Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh, brought some addi- 

 tional specimens to the Museum of Science and Art, among 

 which were fragments of Rhadinacanthas longispinus (Ag.) 

 and Di])terus Valenciennesii (Sedgw. & Murch.). From the 

 Messrs. Gunn I learn that the quarry was first opened in 

 1874. 



After this I began to be able to recognize specimens of 

 fishes from Achanarras by the peculiar mineral character of 

 the rock in which they are imbedded, which is unlike that of 



* The only reference which I have seen to Achanarras as a locality 

 for fossil fishes is contained in a short paper by Mr. John Gunn, " On the 

 Rocks of Central Caithness," Brit. Assoc. Report, 1885, p. 1030. He 

 observes that " at Achanarras a curious fossil Coccosteiis is found in a 

 small slate quarry." 



