J. W. Davis—Note on Scymnus, N. Zealand. 315 
adjusted to exactly the same level, and one or other being brought 
at will into the flame. 
The cork A being set approximately at the proper height, the 
rotation of the steel wire within it moves B and B’ equally in 
vertical planes, and gives a delicate means of fine adjustment. To 
secure uniformity of position in successive experiments, the platinum 
loop carrying the specimen is brought, in the first trial, to the exact 
level of the top of the bunsen burner, or, in the second and third 
trials, to the level of the top of the iron cone. A small plate of 
wood, C, of the thickness of 5 mm., is then slid under the gallipot, 
the specimen being thus raised to the position adopted by Prof. 
Szabo, without any of the difficulties that so often arise from the 
jarring or stiffness of motion in more elaborate supports. 
The dimensions above given are those adapted to a bunsen burner 
of ordinary height and ordinary diameter of base. For packing, the 
erection can be taken down, and the 5-millimetre plate and the 
smaller corks can be kept inside the gallipot till required. 
This obvious and simple contrivance, with its smoothness and 
uniformity of adjustment, may possibly facilitate to some busy 
geologist the practice of the method of flame-reactions; and a sense 
of the value, not to say the charm, of the observations of Prof. Szabo 
must be my excuse for thus describing it at length. 
VIII.—Nore on a Spectes or Scyuvus FROM THE UPPER TERTIARY 
Formation oF New ZEALAND. 
By James W. Davis, F.G.S. 
ik a Memoir recently published “On the Fossil Fish Remains of 
the Tertiary and Cretaceo-Tertiary Formations of New Zea- 
land” (Transactions of the Royal Dublin Society, vol. iv. ser. 11. 
p. 11, pl. vi. fig. 22) there is described a small tooth as an immature 
example of Carcharodon angustidens, Ag. The specimen was in- 
cluded amongst a large number of others forwarded for examination 
by Sir James Hector, Director-General of the Geological Survey of 
New Zealand; it is a small tooth, exquisitely preserved, and does 
not exhibit any, signs of abrasion by use, which led to its being 
provisionally considered as the tooth of a young shark, and its form 
and minutely serrated margin appeared to indicate that its relation- 
ship was with Carcharodon. JI am indebted to Mr. A. Smith Wood- 
ward for the suggestion that the tooth belongs to one of the Spinacide ; 
a re-examination has convinced me of the correctness of this sugges- 
tion, and that it is an example of the genus Scymnus, to which genus 
I have no hesitation in transferring it. The occurrence of this 
specimen in the Napier series of the Hsk River is interesting from 
the fact that the only existing species, Scymnus lichia, is found 
inhabiting the Mediterranean Sea, and that part of the Atlantic 
immediately adjoining. The genus is represented in the Miocene 
Molasse of Baltringen by Scymnus triangulus, Probst, a small thin 
tooth, with a triangular crown anda more or less rectangular base 
divided into two parts by a vertical slit ; from the Pliocene of Tuscany 
