101. GANOID FISHES OF THE CARBONIFEROUS FORMATION. 



Genus — Cryphiolkpis, Traquair, 1881. 



Generic Characters. — Fusiform ; strongly heterocercal ; suspeusorium oblique ; gape 

 wide; external hones of head closely striated; teeth conical, sharp, of different sizes, 

 larger and smaller; fins large, nil with fulcra; dorsal situated about the middle of the 

 back ; principal rays of the pectoral unarticulated up to one third of their length from 

 their origins. Scales of the body thin, rounded, but seldom symmetrically so, deeply 

 imbricating articular peg and socket obsolete, exposed surface covered with closely-set 

 rounded ridges which seem to be hollow internally ; scales of the caudal body-prolongation 

 acutely rhombic on the sides, and forming a median row of imbricating V-scales along 

 the dorsal margin. 



Cryphiolepis striatus, Traquair. Plate XXII, figs. 1 — 4. 



Co;lacanthu8 striatus, Traquair. Geol. Mag. [2], vol. viii, 1881, p. 37. 

 CiiYrmoLEi'is — Traquair. Ibid., p. 491 ; Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinb., vol. 



xviii, p. 392 ; Traus. Roy. Soc. Ediub., vol. 

 xl, pt. iii, 1903, no. 28, p. 095. 

 — A. S. Woodward. Cat. Foss. Fishes Brit. Mus., pt. ii, 



1891, p. 523. 



Description. — Owing to the crushed and distorted condition in which the few 

 specimens occur, which can in any sense be called " entire," it is difficult to lay down 

 accurate proportional measurements. The most complete example which has yet been 

 found is represented in PI. XXII, fig. 1, and measures 5f inches in length as it stands; 

 but as the front part of the head and the tip of the upper lobe of the caudal fin are 

 wanting, the original length may be estimated at one inch more at the very least, and I 

 should guess that the length of the head would be about equal to the greatest depth of 

 the body and contained between four and five times in the total length of the fish. 

 These proportions, with other details, 1 have endeavoured to express in the accompanying 

 restored figure. 



In no entire head are the bones in a very good state of preservation, yet they show 

 quite enough to prove in an unmistakable way their typically Palseoniscid arrangement. 

 The hyomandibular suspensorium is very oblique, the gape proportionally wide. 

 Detached maxillae and mandibular dentary bones clearly identifiable with those of the 

 present species occur in my collection. One of the former (a sharp impression) is repre- 

 sented in PI. XXII, fig. 2, and is in shape and markings very like the maxilla of 

 Blonichthys (Cosmoptyckius) striatus (PL HI, fig. 3), and like it has its broad or post- 

 orbital portion marked with fine, closely set ridges, mostly parallel with its upper and 

 posterior margins. Of the detached dentary bones a very good example is seen in fig. 3 ; 

 it i> stout and tapering anteriorly, the outer surface being ornamented with ridges 



