254 Dr. A. 8. Woodward on a Fossil Eel. 
with brown; intermediate and posterior coxze, trochanters, 
and spots to apical segment of abdomen piceous; anterior 
coxe and femora each with two broad brown annulations, 
anterior tibie with three annulations, apex of anterior tarsi 
and the intermediate and posterior tarsi fuscous; rostrum with 
the second joint annulated with brown ; antenne, intermediate 
and posterior legs much and closely annulated with brown. 
Long. 83 millim. 
Hab. Urun, near Bombay (Aitken, Brit. Mus.). 
Found living in nest of a spider (Theridium sp.). 
XXI.—WNote on a Fossil Eel from the Scandinavian Chalk. 
By A. Smita Woopwarp, LL.D., F.R.S. 
THERE is no longer any doubt that well-differentiated eels 
occur as fossils in the Chalk. Nearly complete skeletons 
from two formations in the Lebanon * exhibit only one essen- 
tial difference from a modern generalized eel, namely, the 
presence of a separate caudal fin, which has subsequently 
disappeared. Well-preserved remains of the head from the 
English Chalk + show that the cranial osteology of the 
Cretaceous fish is identical with that characteristic of the 
suborder Apodes in the existing fauna. 
It is curious that so highly specialized a type of fish as the 
eel should date back to the Cretaceous period. It is still 
more remarkable that it should prove to have been widely 
distributed at that remote time. Continual discoveries, 
however, seem to indicate that it was an essential element of 
the later Cretaceous fish-fauna. I have recently examined a 
new specimen which extends its known range to Scandinavia. 
This interesting fossil was obtained from the Danian Chalk 
of Limhamn, near Malmé, in Southern Sweden, and is now 
preserved in the Museum of the University of Lund, where 
Prof. J. Christian Moberg has kindly permitted me to study 
it. It was originally mentioned by Dames} as _ possibly 
belonging to the family Gadide, and was subsequently 
* Urenchelys avus and U. hakelensis, A. S. Woodward, Catal. Foss. 
Fishes B. M. pt. iv. (1901) pp. 337, 338, pl. xviii. figs. 1-3. 
+ Urenchelys anglucus, A. S. Woodward, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. [7] 
vol. v. (1900) p. 321, pl. ix. fig. 1. 
t W. Dames, “Ueber Vogelreste aus dem Saltholmskalk von Lim- 
hamn bei Malmo,” Bihang k. Svensk, Vet.-Akad. Handl. vol. xvi. sect. iv. 
no. 1 (1890), p. 3. 
