126 OLD RED SANDSTONE FISHES. 



nothing special as regards their contour, nor do those of the ventral aspect, which 

 is the one shown by the right-hand specimen in Fig. 1. It is, however, to be noted 

 that this ventral part of the carapace is, in this individual, not preserved in the 

 centre, and that this is the case in most of the specimens lying in a similar position 

 which I have as yet seen. 



The external surface of the plates of the head and body is covered with a 

 sculpture, which has the original tuberculation mostly so confluent as to produce a 

 pitted-reticulate appearance, which, though nodose in places, seems most appro- 

 priately to agree with the term " Bothriolepis." As shown in the restored outline, 

 Text-fig. 62, the V-shaped sensory canal on the anterior median dorsal and posterior 

 dorso-lateral plates is disposed quite as in B. Canadensis (Text-fig. 57, p. 112), but, 

 as already mentioned, I have seen no trace of the usual transverse commissure of 

 this system on the head in front of the orbit. 



The pectoral appendages are not longer than is usual in the genus Bothriolepis, 

 but the proximal segment, tAvice as long as the distal one, is broad and strongly 

 denticulated along the outer margin. 



Remarks. — If I am right in referring the plate represented in PI. XXX, Fig. 3, 

 to this species, then Dr. Fleming was the first to figure any relic appertaining to it. 

 For this plate, now in the Royal Scottish Museum, is the one, from the Upper Old 

 Red of Clashbennie in Perthshire, figured by that pioneer in Scottish pala3ontology 

 in 1831 j 1 of which he wrote that "in external appearance it bears a very close 

 resemblance to some of the scales on the common sturgeon." That this detached 

 plate is the anterior median dorsal of a Bothriolepis there is not the smallest doubt, 

 and my idea that it belongs to B. hydrophila is founded, first, on the manner in 

 which a triangular area, with backwardly directed apex, is marked off in front by 

 two convergent shallow depressions, and, secondly, on the reticulate-pitted nature of 

 the sculpture, which is, however, relatively coarser than in the Dura Den specimens. 

 As regards the latter, among which, of course, are the types of the species, the 

 first notice and figure were given by the Rev. Dr. Anderson in 1840 in a publica- 

 tion called 'Fife Illustrated,' vol. i, pp. 195, 196. 2 Here the creature is given a 

 place among the Coleoptera or beetles, and is said specially to " resemble the family 

 • it Curculionida3, of which the diamond beetle is an example of the existing race, 

 but of the most insignificant dimensions as compared with the Dura fossils." He 

 remarks, however, on the apparent absence of elytra and antenna 1 , and on the fact 



1 'Edinburgh Journal of Natural and Geographical Science,' vol. iii, Feb., 1831, pp. 85, 86, 

 pi. ii, fig. :!. 



2 ' Fife Illustrated,' or ' History of the County of Fife,' by J. Leighton and J. Swan, with steel 

 engravings by J. Stewart, three vols. 4to, Glasgow, 1840. In Vol. I a chapter on the Geology is 

 contributed by the Rev. Dr. Anderson, with one plate of fossils, fig. 6 of which represents the supposed 

 " beetle." 



