48 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



In addition to this, we collected a Limuloid form, which I have 

 called Belinurus Kiltorkensis, and a Phyllopod, Proracaris MacHenrici. 



The fish remains are also of considerable interest, and are eminently 

 characteristic of Old Red Sandstone strata. They consist for the most 

 part of detached portions, comprising a few conical teeth, resembling 

 those of Dendrodus or Bothriolepis, jaws with teeth most probably 

 belonging to Coccosteus, and osseous plates of the same fish, these being 

 the most numerous. A small species of Pterichthys also occurs, and 

 numerous scales of Glyptolepis. Only in one instance were we suc- 

 cessful in obtaining anything like an entire fish ; it belongs to the last- 

 named genus, and I believe it to be identical with Glyptolepis 

 eleyans. 



The great importance of the fossils of this locality cannot, I feel 

 convinced, be overrated, and it will doubtless yield still more valuable 

 results. Duplicate sets of these fossils have already been supplied to 

 various scientific institutions both in our own country, on the Conti- 

 nent, and in America. The letters received in acknowledgment suffi- 

 ciently testify as to the appreciation in which they are held. 



Professor Oswald Heer, in a paper read before the Geological 

 Society of London on the Carboniferous flora of Bear Island (lat. 

 74° 30'), enumerates 18 species of plants, indicating, according to the 

 author, a close approximation of the flora to that of Tallow Bridge and 

 Kiltorean ; also to the Greywacke of the Yosges and the southern Black 

 Forest, and the Verneuiler shales of Aix, and St. John's, IS'ew Bruns- 

 wick. He refers this flora to the Lower Carboniferous, and therefore 

 argues that the line of separation between the Carboniferous and Devo- 

 nian must be drawn below the yellow sandstone. The prevalence of 

 fishes of Old Red Sandstone type in the overlying slates he regards as 

 an argument to invalidate the conclusion. 



Sir Charles Lyell, in the discussion which followed, remarked that 

 the yellow sandstone of Dura Den in Pife, and of the counties of Cork 

 and Kilkenny in Ireland, contain fish exclusively Devonian, and others, 

 such as the genus Coccosteus, which are abundantly represented in the 

 Middle Old Red Sandstone, and by one species only in the Carboniferous 

 formation. The evidence derived from these fish inclined him, there- 

 fore, to the belief that the yellow sandstone, whether in Ireland or 

 Pife, should be referred to the Upper Devonian and not to the Lower 

 Carboniferous. 



/YIII. — ]S"oTES ON THE Myology op the Coatt-mozs-di (Nastta JS'ahica 

 ^ AKD !N". Ptjsca) akd Common Maktix (Mjetes Poota). By H. W. 

 Mackintosh, B.A, 



[Read April 13, 1874.] 



The following remarks are founded on the dissection of one specimen of 

 JVasua narica, one of A^. fiisca, and two of Martesfoina. They all formed 

 part of the collection in the Dublin Zoological Gardens, and having 



