472 Notices of Memoirs — Dr. A. Smith Woodward — Fish Fauna. 



always occur in the same stratigraphical order. There is also con- 

 siderable evidence of a similar succession on the continent of Europe, 

 in Spitzbergen, and in North America. 



Much interest was therefore aroused, twelve years ago, when the 

 late Sir Frederick McCoy announced that a mixture of repre- 

 sentatives of all these different faunas had been discovered in a bed 

 of Palgeozoic Red Sandstone in Australia.^ These fossils were found 

 at the supposed base of the Carboniferous system in the valley of 

 the Broken Eiver, near Mansfield, Victoria. The first fragments 

 were discovered by Mr. Reginald Murray ; a large series of remains 

 was afterwards collected by the Rev. A. Cresswell for the Geological 

 Survey of Victoria ; and valuable additions were also made by 

 Mr. George Sweet, F.G.S., of Melbourne. The complete collection 

 was placed in the Melbourne Museum, and Sir Frederick McCoy's 

 report was the result of his preliminary study of it. 



Unfortunately, notwithstanding the interest of this important 

 discovery, no definite information concerning it has hitherto been 

 published. Before his death McCoy was only able to supervise the 

 drawing of some plates to illustrate a memoir which he hoped to 

 prepare. The specimens proved to be too fragmentary, and the 

 materials for comparison in the Australian museums too inadequate 

 for him to arrive at any satisfactory results. The whole collection 

 has therefore been sent to me by Professors Baldwin Spencer and 

 J. W. Gregory ; and at present I have the honour of preparing the 

 projected memoir for the Geological Survey of Victoria. 



With ample facilities for the study of the collection, it now 

 appears that McCoy's original report was based on a complete 

 misinterpretation of many of the fragments. Far from displaying 

 a " mixture of Lower Devonian, Upper Devonian, and types related 

 to some of the Calciferous Sandstone series," as McCoy supposed, 

 the Broken River collection is typically and essentially Carboniferous; 

 and some of the specimens are of great interest, both from the 

 ichthyologist's and from the geologist's point of view. 



None of the specimens or drawings are labelled with the names 

 proposed for them by McCoy, and none of his manuscript notes are 

 forthcoming. I am thus unable to recognise all his identifications 

 with certainty. Most of them, however, are distinguishable ; and it 

 is, in any case, sure that I have the whole of the material which was 

 at his disposal. 



The fossils regarded by McCoy as Lower Devonian in facies 

 received the names of Bytidaspis murrayi and Fteraspis (?) mans- 

 fieldensis. The former was said to be of the same shape as 

 Cephalaspis, the latter not more than generically distinct from 

 Fteraspis. There are, however, in the collection no remains either 

 of Cephalaspidians or Pteraspidians, or any types related to them. 

 I do not know to which fossil the name Bytidaspis was applied, but 

 it is evident that impressions of some gular plates of a large 

 Rhizodont fish were mistaken for the supposed Fteraspis. 



1 F. McCoy, "Eeport on PalEeontology for the year 1888": Ann. Eep. Sec. 

 Mines, Victoria, 1889 (1890), pp. 23, 24. 



