Reports and Proceedings — Geological Society of London. 139 



inaccurate. There is also the first attempt at a restoration of 

 Coehicanthus, based on the fine specimens from the Coal-measures 

 of Ohio ; and another less satisfactory restoration is given of 

 Diplurus, from the Trias of New Jersey. The Actinopterygians are 

 merely subdivided into the Chondrosteans (Ganoids) and the 

 Teleocephali (Teleosts), an arrangement scarcely adequate to our 

 present knowledge of the subject. Of Mesozoic Actinopterygians 

 good figures are copied from Traquair and Zittel, but the series is 

 spoiled by the insertion of three very erroneous early attempts by 

 Agassiz to show the principal features of Rhabdolepis macro pterux, 

 Catnrus furcatus, and Leptolepis sprattifnrmis. The last two figures, 

 as also those by Pander, are wrongly ascribed to the writer of this 

 review. So little is known of the ancestry of the groups of true 

 bony fishes, that Dr. Dean makes little or no reference to the fossil 

 forms, merely attempting a theoretical diagram to illustrate their 

 evolution. The final chapter of the book, however, shows that the 

 extinct forms must be relied upon almost entirely to determine this 

 evolution ; for, in treating of the development of fishes, the author 

 particularly emphasizes the fact that their embryology seems to 

 afford scarcely any clue to the solution of problems of descent. The 

 latest, results from the study of the embryos of many groups are all, 

 indeed, very inconclusive, and most of them are not even suggestive. 

 As Dr. Dean remarks, " adaptive characters have entered so largely 

 into the plan of the development of fishes, that they obscure many 

 of the features which might otherwise be made of value for 

 comparison." 



The work concludes with an extremely useful and carefully 

 prepared bibliography, a list of derivations of proper names, and 

 a number of diagrams and tables of fish anatomy, to show at a glance 

 the differences between one group and another. It is a volume 

 indispensable to all who desire a general acquaintance with the 

 subject of which it treats, and students are much indebted to the 

 author for having furnished them for the first time with a thoroughly 

 up-to-date handbook. A. Smith Woodward. 



EBPOETS .A-ICTID lE^IROO-EIEIDIlNrG-S. 



Geological Society of London. 



February 5th, 1896. — Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., President, 

 in the Chair. The following communications were read : — 



1. " On the Morte Slates and Associated Beds in North Devon and 

 West Somerset.— Part I." By Henry Hicks, M.D., F.R S., F.G.S. 



In a paper read before the Society in 1890 the author stated that 

 he had found the Morte Slates to be fossiliferous, and had come to 

 the conclusion that they were the oldest rocks in the North Devon 

 area, and had been thrust over much newer rocks, producing 

 a deceptive appearance of conformity ; and that there was not a con- 

 tinuous upward succession in the rocks from the Bristol Channel 



