370 



the remains of five or six species of quadrupeds associated with them, 

 he detected those of a species of Agouti. 



Our museum has just been enriched by a truly magnificent present 

 of fossil bones from India, more valuable than any which have reached 

 England since those obtained by Mr. Crawfurd and Dr. Wallich from 

 Ava. They were collected and presented to us by a gentleman whom we 

 last year elected a Fellow of this Society, Capt. Cautley of the Bengal 

 Artillery, and their existence seems to have been first distinctly recog- 

 nized by Dr. Falconer, superintendent of the Botanic Garden at Saha- 

 Tunpore. These organic remains come from the range of hills for- 

 merly called Sewalik, which skirt the base of the Himalayan Mountains 

 from the Ganges to the Sutluj rivers, or from north lat. 30° to 31°. 

 They abound in part of the range to the westward of the Jumna river, 

 and belong to the genera Mastodon, Elephant, Hippopotamus, Rhi- 

 noceros, Hog, Anthracotherium, Horse, Ox, Deer, Antelope, Ca- 

 nis, Felis, Gavial, Crocodile, Erays, Trionyx, besides fish and shells. 

 Among the fossils there are some considered to be new genera, and 

 one which Messrs. Cautley and Falconer have called Sevatherium. 



We have also received a splendid collection of specimens of rocks 

 from the Himalayas, illustrating the two sections published by Mr. 

 Royle in his work on these movmtains, from the plains to the snowy 

 passes, and his section across the central range of India. 



Several new facts have been brought to light in fossil ichthyo- 

 logy during the last year. Sir P. Egerton has foimd in the coal- 

 field of North Staffordshire, among other remains of fish, some 

 scales of the Megalichthys, that large sauroidal fish first described 

 by Dr. Hibbert as occurring at Burdiehouse, near Edinburgh. I 

 have lately seen a large tooth of this fish in a mass of Cannel coal 

 found in Fifeshire by Mr. Horner and described by him in a paper 

 read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh. It will be remem- 

 bered that these teeth were formerly referred to saurians, to which, 

 in fact, the Megalichthys had a much nearer affinity, according to 

 Mr. Agassiz, than has any fish now living. Sir P. Egerton has also 

 published a catalogue of the fossil fish in his cabinet at Oulton Park, 

 and in that of Lord Cole, at Florence Court ; two collections which 

 are described by Mr. Agassiz as unrivalled in England in this de- 

 partment of organic remains, and only equalled by two others in 

 the rest of Europe, that of Count Munster, at Baireuth in Bavaria, 

 and that of the Royal Museum of Paris *. In this catalogue Sir 

 Philip has given the names and localities of about 200 ichthyolites, 

 British and foreign, and has indicated the geological position of 

 each. 



Remains of fishes have been found by Mr. Prestwich in a forma- 

 tion of sandstone and red conglomerate which overlies the old red 

 sandstone in Banffshire. He supposes the deposit to be of the age 

 of the coal-measures, an opinion which is in accordance with the 

 characters of the ichthyolites as determined by Mr. Agassiz. 



* Agassiz, Poiss. ^oss , 4me livr. p. 45. 



