501 
aa many other teeth in the bone- bed not yet described, are un- 
known in the lias. 
During the past year great additions have been made to our stores 
of knowledge, and specimens in fossil Ichthyology, by the presenta- 
tion to our Museum of a very large and rich collection of fishes 
from the lower beds of the old red sandstone near Forres, which we 
owe to the zeal and liberality of Lady Gordon Cumming of Altyre. 
Her Ladyship and her eldest daughter have further contributed 
most accurate and exquisitely finished drawings of many fossil fishes 
from the same locality, in illustration of Dr. Malcolmson’s paper 
on the old red sandstone. These ladies have also supplied many 
other drawings to the forthcoming volumes of Professor Agassiz. 
Further information on the fishes of the old red sandstone has been 
acquired by the diligent researches and extensive collections made 
in the same department of Paleontology by many scientific gentle- 
men in the counties of Caithness, Elgin; Nairn, Aberdeen, Forfar 
and Fife; following up the researches that were begun in this al- 
most new and most curious subject by Dr. Fleming, Professor 
Sedgwick, Mr. Murchison, Dr. Traill, Dr. Maleolmson and Mr. H. 
Miller. 
The three great subdivisions of the old red sandstone in these 
counties, with their characteristic genera of fishes, have, by these 
extensive researches, been fully corroborated, whilst a vast increase 
has accrued to the known number of species of fishes which appear 
to be peculiar to the upper, middle, and lower regions of this area 
formation. 
The visit of Professor Agassiz to Scotland in September last, and 
the grant to him by the British Association of 100J. to aid in col- 
lecting materials for the publication of a memoir on the fossil fishes: 
of the old red sandstone, have opportunely afforded a concurrence 
of circumstances most favourable to the diffusion of a new and 
brilliant light on our future researches in this very ancient depart- 
ment of Paleontology. 
Before he left Scotland, Professor Agassiz had recognised, in va- 
rious collections he visited in that country, undescribed Ichthyolites 
sufficient to enable him to establish fifteen genera, and more than 
forty species, the greater part of them not yet named, in the old red 
sandstone formation*. We have in these details a palaeontological 
confirmation of the fact that the old red sandstone is a system di- 
stinct from any other formations; all its numerous Ichthyolites being 
different from those of the carboniferous system above it, and also 
different from the few fishes yet found in the upper region only of 
the Silurian system next below it. 
Mr. Murchison, during his extensive tour in Russia, in the late 
summer, has enlarged our knowledge of the range of these cu- 
rious fishes and of the old red sandstone over vast regions in the 
* The names of these genera are Acanthodes, Cephalaspis, Cheiracan- 
thus, Cheirolepis, Coccosteus, Ctenacanthus, Ctenoptychius, Diplacanthus, 
Diplopierus, Glyptolepis, Holepiychieg Onchus, Osteolepis, Platygnathus, 
Pterichthys. 
VOL. Ill. PART II. 27 
