210 _ REPORT—1883. 
This specimen, which is figured on the plate accompanying this report, 
is in the collection of the Rev. Canon .Grainger, D.D., Rector of Brough- 
shane, who has aided considerably in these investigations. It is a 
portion of a pinnule, with about eight alternating leaflets on each side, 
on which the midrib and nerves are strongly marked, and not forked, 
except at their apex. 
With reference to this fern, Dr. Oswald Heer, in his description of 
the fossil flora of Bovey Tracey, Devonshire,! in alluding to the 
‘ Miocene’ formation of Bovey, says: ‘Of fifty species of plants found 
in the lignite beds of Bovey twenty-one occur also on the Continent in 
the Miocene formation. The lignite of Bovey Tracey is, therefore, un- 
doubtedly Miocene; and it is worthy of special remark that the species of 
Cinnamonium which are so characteristic of the Miocene, and so gene- 
rally distributed through it, make their appearance in Bovey precisely 
as in the lignites and molasse of the rest of Hurope; equally characteristic 
is the Lastrea Stiriaca, the fern of most universal distribution over 
Miocene Europe.’ 
The importance of the discovery of this fern in the ironstone deposits 
of the North of Ireland cannot therefore be overrated after this expres- 
sion of opinion as to its value in determining the age of the strata in 
which it is found, on the authority of so eminent a fossil botanist as that 
of Professor Heer. 
Mr. J. Starkie Gardner, F.G.S., who has been for some time studying 
the Coniferze, and lately visited this country for the purpose of examining 
these collections, has very kindly furnished me with a few notes on them. 
He thinks (as far as his observations lead him at present) there is but one 
or two species of pine; ‘cones of Thuya (Cupressine) abound ; cones of 
Sequoia are rarer ; Conifer outnumber leafy trees by at least twenty and 
possibly one hundred fragments to one; Magnolia fruits are as about one 
to five against pine cones.’ He also states that ‘he has seen (in these 
collections) several specimens of Nelwmbiwm (a water-lily) ;’ all these 
names, as he observes, must at present be taken as provisional, except 
Pinus. ‘There are two other conifers, both specimens unique, and both 
Greenland forms.’ 
The Rev. Dr. Grainger was also fortunate enough to obtain a portion 
of a fossil fish, which was found in a drift boulder of red or ochrey 
marl (resembling that of some of the deposits at Ballypalady), at Culley- 
backey, near Ballymena. It consisted of twelve or more vertebra, with 
their processes, above which are bones of the dorsal fin, and may have be- 
longed to a fresh-water fish of the Percide, such as the genus Lates. 
This fossil is of considerable interest, as no remains of Vertebrata have, 
so far as we are aware, hitherto been found in British strata of this age. 
Explanation of Plate I. 
Fig. 1. a. Lastrea Stiriaca (Unger) pinnule, nat. size. 
ae. ul Oe 4s portion enlarged 2 diameters. 
5 eae Ny ssa ornithobroma (Heer) i in ironstone, shore of Lough Neagh. a, Nat. 
size. b,. Enlarged 14 diameters. ; 
. ?Carpolithus sulcatulus (Heer) (same loc.). 
4,0: 4, follicularis (Heer), a. Nat. size. 0. Enlarged (same loc.). 
aa Quercus Lyelli (Heer). Drift clay, shore of Lough Neagh, 
. ? Salix varians (Heer). % F 
. Fish. ? Lates or Perea. 
” 
' Philosophical Transactions, 1862, p. 1039 et seq. 
