552 Prof. Traquair — On a New Fossil Fish. 



ties of dogmatism on the one hand, and scepticism on the other, it 

 came to be so thought, we need not here consider. Let us hope and 

 confidently expect that it will not last; that the religious faith 

 which survived without a shock the notion of the fixity of the earth 

 itself, may equally outlast the notion of the absolute fixity of the 

 species which inhabit it ; that in the future, even more than in the 

 past, faith in an order, which is the basis of Science, will not (as it 

 cannot reasonably) be dissevered, from faith in an Ordainer, which 

 is the basis of Eeligion." 



My self-imposed task is ended — how imperfectly it has been ful- 

 filled no one is more conscious than myself; but if I have by this 

 means succeeded in attracting your attention to a few of the vast 

 number of lines of scientific inquiry stretching into the universe 

 around, along which the intellectual powers of man are striving to 

 advance, and upon which we also may become travellers, I shall 

 not have spoken altogether in vain. 



II. — On a New Genus op Fossil Fish of the Order Dipnoi.^ 



By Eamsay H. Traquair, M.D., 

 Professor of Zoology in the Royal College of Science, Dublin. 



(PLATE XIV.) 



AGASSIZ, after describing the intermaxillary bone of Megalichthjs, 

 makes the following brief statement regarding the fossil which 

 is the subject of the present paper : " M. Konig possede une piece 

 detachee qui parait etre le meme os." ^ 



This "piece detachee" is in the collection of the British Museum, 

 and has lately been completely wrought out by removal of the re- 

 mains of the matrix, in which it was imbedded. It was shown to 

 me some time ago by my friend Mr. Henry Woodward, who expressed 

 to me, at the time, his own opinion that it could not belong to Mega- 

 lichtJiys, but that it was in all probability a new genus. In this 

 opinion I entirely concurred, as it was at the first glance evident that 

 it could not belong to the Saurodipterine group, of which Megalicli- 

 tliys is a member, although certain parts did exhibit a very brilliant 

 jDunctated Ganoid surface, reminding us of the polished plates and 

 scales of that genus. On the contrary, fragmentary as the fossil un- 

 fortunately is, its configuration shows that it must be closely allied 

 to Dipterus, and must therefore be included in the order Bipnoi ; the 

 close relationship between Dipterus and the living Ceratodus and 

 Lepidosiren having been already clearly shown by Dr. Giinther.^ 



The specimen before us is, as aforesaid, only a fragment, measuring 

 1^ inches in length by 3 in breadth, and is evidently the extremity 

 of the snout of a very large fish, probably 4 or 5 feet long. It is of 

 a somewhat semilunar form ; showing a rough posterior margin where 

 it has been broken off from the rest of the head ; a superior arched 

 ganoid surface, which has formed part of the upper aspect of the 



' Eead before the Eoyal Geological Society of Ireland, 14th May, 1873. 

 2 Poissoiis Fossiles, vol. ii. part 2, p. 91. ^ phii_ Trans. 1871. 



