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PBOCEEBINOS Ot IKE GEOlOGlCAi SOCIETY. [BeC. IS, 



2. On the Stagonolepis Eobeetsoni (Agassiz) of the Elgin Sand- 

 STON"ES ; and on the recently discovered Footmaeks in the Sai^d- 

 STONES of CtTMMLEsTGSTONE. By Thomas H. Huxlet, F.R.S., F.G.S., 

 Professor of Natural History, Government School of Mines. 



(Plate XIY.) 

 Contents. 



Introduction. 



Dermal Scutes of Stagonolepis. 

 Dermal Scutes of Recent Crocodilia. 

 Dermal Scutes of Fossil Crocodilia and 



Teleosauria. 

 Comparison of the Scutes of Stagono- 



lepis with those of Crocodilia and 



Teleosauria, 

 Bones of Stagonolepis. 

 Affinities of Stagonolepis. 

 Foot-prints. 

 Note (Postscript). 



Introduction.- — In establishing the genus Stagonolepis Prof. Agassiz 

 remarks * — " I have founded this genus upon a slab on which the 

 impression of many series of great rhomboidal scales, arranged in the 

 same way as those of the Lepidosteidce, is observable. The angular 

 form of these impressions allows of no doubt that the fish whence 

 they proceeded was a great ganoid similar to Megalichthys. The 

 absence of the fins, of the head, and of the teeth, however, renders 

 the exact determination of the family to which the fossil belongs 

 impossible. I arrange it provisionally in the neighbourhood of the 

 genus Glyptopomus, to which it presents some analogy in the orna- 

 mentation of its scales." 



Prof. Agassiz goes on to say, in a subsequent paragraph, that the 

 fossU came from the Upper C)ld Bed at Lossiemouth ; that he had 

 not himself seen the original, and that he was acquainted with it 

 only through Mr. Eobertson's drawings. 



Stagonolepis has remained ranged among the fishes in all the 

 • works on Geology and Paleeontology which have been published 

 since the appearance of the ^ Monographic.' Sir C. Lyell, however, 

 informs me that some years ago, after perusing the memoir on 

 Mystriosaurus by Dr. A. Wagner, to which I shall have occasion to 

 refer by and by, his suspicions were roused as to the real affinities 

 of this so-called fish ; and he even communicated to the late Mr. 

 Hugh Miller his doubts (based on the strong resemblance which he 

 perceived between the sculpture of the dermal plates of Stagonolepis 

 and that represented by Dr. Wagner in the scutes of Mystriosaurus) 

 whether, after all, Stagonolepis might not be a reptile. That emi- 

 nent investigator of the Old Bed Sandstone fossils was, however, 

 so fully satisfied of the piscine nature of the remains that Sir 

 Charles Lyell did not press his objections, and it might have been 

 long before the question had been revived had not Sir Boderick Mur- 

 chison been led to visit the Elgin country in the course of the pre- 

 sent year (1858). On examining the bony remains associated with 

 scutes of Stagonolepis, some of which were preserved in the Elgin 

 Museum and in the collections of Mr. Patrick Duff and of the Bev. Mr. 

 Gordon, while others were collected by himself. Sir B. I. Murchison 

 was so impressed by their obviously reptihan characters that he 



* Monographie des Poissons fossiles du vieux gres rouge, p. 139. 



