﻿46 GANOID FISHES OF THE CARBONIFEROUS FORMATION. 



fig. 6) affords a very inadequate, and not very correct representation of their form and 

 sculpture. This scale-sculpture persists over the entire body; in fact, from the tip of 

 the snout to the extremity of the tail, every exposed portion of bone, scale, or fin-ray, is 

 covered with a delicate striated ornamentation, which must have rendered the appearance 

 of the fish, when alive, one of extreme beauty. 



Observations. — The original specimens described and figured by Agassiz were col- 

 lected by Lord Greenock and are in the Museum of the Royal Society of Edinburgh ; 

 others, with Agassiz's handwriting on the back, are in the Hunterian Museum of the 

 University of Glasgow. I have already indicated a slight possibility that one of these 

 (Agassiz, tab. cit., fig. 3) may belong to a distinct species, from the greater proportional 

 length of the joints of its fin-rays. The other two type specimens (figs. 4 and 5 of the 

 same plate) are undoubtedly identical with those figured and described in the present 

 work, and which are contained in the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art, and in the 

 private collection of the author. 



Geological Position and Locality. — Cosmoptychius striatus is one of the most common 

 of the fishes which occur in the ironstone nodules of the bituminous shales of Wardie, 

 near Newhaven, on the Frith of Forth, about two miles north from Edinburgh. Most of 

 the specimens of it which have been found are in a very fragmentary and badly preserved 

 condition ; as Dr. Paterson says in his paper on the fossils of this locality, " it constitutes 

 the majority of those fish found in a disjointed condition." The overwhelming majority 

 of the nodules referred to contain large coprolites, rendering the expenditure of much 

 time and patience necessary for the acquisition of fish-remains from this locality ; never- 

 theless no fewer than thirteen species of Ganoids, most of which are Palaoniscida, have 

 been here obtained, along with obscure remains of Sharks. The geological position of 

 these "Wardie Shales " is in the Calciferous Sandstone series below the horizon of the 

 Burdiehouse Limestone ; by the Geological Survey of Scotland they are also placed 

 below the Craigleith Sandstones. A portion of shale from a bed occurring immediately 

 above the sandstone at Craigleith Quarry, near Edinburgh, recently presented to the 

 Edinburgh Museum by Mr. James Gaul, displays numerous scales of the same species. 



The Hugh Miller Collection in the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art likewise 

 contains a specimen from Burdiehouse, which I am inclined to refer to this species ; it is, 

 however, so badly preserved, and so peculiarly crushed, as to render its identification a 

 matter of great doubt and difficulty. 



As yet I have no authentic proof of its occurrence in any other localities, and 

 the record, by Giebel, 1 of its occurrence in the Coal-measures of Wettin, in Prussia, is 

 certainly based on an erroneous identification, as I have ascertained by an examination 

 of the specimen so labelled in the Mineralogical Museum at Halle. Cosmoptychius 

 striatus must therefore be considered as essentially a Lower Carboniferous form. 



1 ' Fauna der Vorwelt,' i, 3, p. 254. 



