2 WATSON & Day, Notes on some Palceozoic Fishes. 



During the last few years the collection of fossil fishes 

 in the Manchester Museum has increased very rapidly by 

 gift, purchase and exchange, until it is now one of marked 

 importance, rich in specimens of morphological interest. 

 It is our purpose in this paper to describe some of these 

 of Palaeozoic age belonging to the Crossopterygian and 

 Dipnoan orders. The work forms part of an investiga- 

 tion into the origin of the Amphibia on which one of 

 us has been long engaged. We intend to give as accurate 

 and as full an account as possible of certain types and 

 briefly to discuss their inter-relationships and certain 

 points of morphological interest. 



Holopty chins flemingii, Ag. 



The structure of the small species of Holoptychius 

 which occurs so abundantly in the yellow sandstones of 

 the upper Old Red Sandstone of Dura Den in Fifeshire 

 has been described by Agassiz and Huxley. 



Dr. Traquair in 1896 published a restoration of the 

 whole fish and E. S. Goodrich in 1909 an original restora- 

 tion of the head. These works have made us acquainted 

 with the general structure of the animal, its body form, 

 squamation, and the general external appearance of its 

 fins, being well understood. Investigations of Owen have 

 made us acquainted with the structure of its teeth, and 

 Rohon, working on Russian materials belonging to the 

 same genus has added to our knowledge of its skull. 



Despite all this, however, our detailed knowledge of 

 the skull structure remains very small. The head of the 

 restored figure by Traquair is by far the most accurate 

 contribution to a knowledge of its cranial osteology, but 

 even this is in some ways inaccurate. 



Our study is founded on the heads of seven individuals 



