133 GANOID FISHES OF THE CARBONIFEROUS FORMATION. 



having been presented to that institution by the Royal Society of Edinburgh. It is 

 very imperfect, showing no fins save the mere origins of the anal and caudal, the former 

 of which seems to liave been overlooked by Agassiz. On the other hand, I cannot, by 

 the most careful examination, verify his statement regarding the presence of small teeth 

 "fw brosse'^ upon the jaw. 



Imperfect though the type specimen may be, I am nevertheless justified in identi- 

 fying with it not oidy some examples from the original locality, i)nt also many others 

 from various places and horizons, which show very clearly that ^'carinatus" is a well- 

 marked mcnd)er of the genus Bhadinichfln/s. Its characters as regards the scale 

 ornament are rather more variable than in the case of lih. ornafissimus, and accordingly 

 there is here more danger of unnecessary multiplication of species. I have in this way 

 seen reason to retract the specific term Geikiei which I applied to some very small and 

 apparently juvenile specimens collected by tlie Geological Survey of Scotland at Redhall, 

 near Slateford, as well as to consider my Bk. tenuicauda to be founded on unsatisfactorily 

 preserved examples of the species under consideration. 



In the Edinburgh University Anatomical Museum there is a specimen of Rh. 

 carinatus from Cornceres, in Fifeshire, which belonged to the late Professor Goodsir ; it 

 is possible that this may be the " Caiopterns fusiformis " which the late Mr. Robert 

 Walker states was described by Professor Goodsir in 1838 before a meeting of the 

 Literary and Philosophical Society of St. Andrews, and which, according to Mr. Walker, 

 he characterised as being closely allied to Palaoniscus, but differing from it " in wanting 

 the scaling or false rays along the anterior ray of the fins, and also in the dorsal fin 

 being opposite the anal."^ In this specimen the dorsal fin is, indeed, nearly opposite 

 the anal (as in others of the same genus as well as species), but on close examination 

 fulcra are distinctly observable. I have not been able to procure Professor Goodsir's 

 description, or even to ascertain exactly where it is to be found, bub as it appears to have 

 been published only in a provincial newspaper, the generic name Catopterus must remain 

 with the Triassic semi-heterocercal fishes for which it was proposed by the Messrs. 

 Redfield.2 



Geolo(jical Position and Localities. — Like the preceding species, Bhadinichthys 

 carinatus has an extensive distribution in the Lower Carboniferons rocks of the great 

 central valley of Scotland. The following is a list of localities arranged in geological 

 succession from below upwards : 



Calciferous Sandstone Series -. Wardie Beach, in ironstone nodules. Redhall, near 

 Slateford, in railway cutting; floor of" Dunnet" Shale at Straiton. Abundant in the 

 "Curly" Shale at Pumpherston and Roman Camp, in the Broxburn district, West Lothian. 

 In Fifeshire, at Burntisland ; Cornceres near Kilrenny; Pitcorthy near Anstruther. 



1 'Trans. Geol. Soc. Edinb.,' vol. ii, 1872, p. 124. 



2 Gatopterus, J. H. Redfield, waa likewise published bj the American author one year earlier, 

 namely in 1837. 



