THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



NEW SERIES. DECADE III. VOL. VII. 



No. VII.— JULY, 1890. 



OEIGIITAL ABTICLBS. 



I, — On a Head of Eurycormus from the Kimmeridge Clay 



of Ely. 1 



By A. Smith Woodward, F.G.S., F.Z.S. ; 



of the British Museum (Natural History). 



(PLATE X. Figs. 1-8.) 



LITTLE is known of the Upper Jurassic Fish-fauna from dis- 

 coveries in British Formations ; and though considerable in- 

 formation upon the subject has already been acquired, this has been 

 chiefly obtained from the fine Lithographic Stones of Bavaria, 

 W u rtemberg, and France. In these deposits, as is well known, fish- 

 skeletons are found in an almost complete state, with the bones 

 remarkably well preserved ; and the only obstacle to the satisfactory 

 determination of the various elements is the extreme compression to 

 which the fossils have been subjected and the hardness of the matrix 

 in which they are enveloped. 



Within the last few years, remains of similar fishes have been met 

 with in several localities in the Oxford and Kimmeridge Clays of 

 England ; and the soft character of the rock often allows of these 

 fossils being completely disengaged from matrix. Such specimens 

 are of extreme value for the precise determination of certain skeletal 

 features in the genera to which they belong ; and it is the object of 

 the present paper to describe an example of Eurycormus elucidating 

 some new points in the skeletal anatomy of this genus. The speci- 

 men has already been briefly noticed 3 as being the first evidence of 

 the occurrence of the fish in the British Jurassic. 



The fossil in question (PL X. Figs. 1-8) is a fine example of the 

 skull and adjoining elements discovered by Mr. Henry Keeping in 

 the Kimmeridge Clay of Ely, and makes known, for the first time, 

 the form and proportions of several of the bead-bones in Eurycormus. 

 The specimen was acquired last year by the Woodwardian Museum, 

 Cambridge, and the writer is indebted to the kindness of Professor 

 McKenny Hughes for the opportunity of investigating its characters. 



The occipital border (Fig. 2) forms a straight transverse line, and 

 the width of the cranium at this point is nearly equal to half of its total 

 length. The occipital bones are too much crushed and obscured for 



1 Read before the Geological Society, January 8th, 1890. 



2 Smith Woodward, " Preliminary Notes on some New and Little-known British 

 Jurassic Fishes," Rep. Brit. Assoc, 1889, and Geol. Mao. [3] Vol. VI. (1889), 

 p. 448. 



DECADE HI. — VOL. VII. NO. VII. 19 



