﻿54 GANOID FISHES OF THE CARBONIFEROUS FORMATION. 



margin of the specimen, part of the left pectoral fin is seen, evidently very powerful, and 

 composed of numerous closely jointed rays, of which the anterior one, however, shows no 

 articulations for a considerable distance ; its extremity, hidden in the stone, could not be 

 worked out without injuring the ventral, beyond whose origin it passes. The ventral 

 (left) is also only partly seen, its anterior margin being damaged, and its extremity 

 covered by the matrix ; its proportions must have resembled those of the ventral of the 

 preceding species ; the rays are stout, numerous, and closely articulated. The dorsal fin, 

 the anterior margin of which is injured at its origin, is of great size ; and, calculating for 

 the lost portion in front, it must have measured at least 2% inches in height by If in 

 length at the base ; it is larger than the anal, which is If inch deep from origin to apex, 

 with a base of about If inch in length. 1 Both of these fins are triangular in shape, 

 acuminated, very high in front, their posterior margins being concavely cut out. Their rays 

 are very numerous ; though they are not capable of being accurately counted, I should 

 be inclined to estimate their number in the dorsal at about 50, and in the anal at not less 

 than 35 — 40. They are closely articulated, the joints being nearly square in the coarser 

 rays, but getting still closer and shorter posteriorly; their external ganoid surfaces are 

 finely striated ; toward their extremities they begin to dichotomise, and they end in very 

 fine branches. Posteriorly the anal is pretty closely followed by the caudal, powerfully 

 developed, and evidently considerably inequilobate, though the termination of neither 

 lobe is seen. The rays of the lower lobe of the caudal dichotomise as usual towards 

 their extremities ; as we pass to the upper lobe the division takes place sooner, and the 

 rays get more and more delicate ; the articulations of the rays at the bifurcation, and in 

 the upper lobe, are very close and short, more so than in any of the other fins. Very 

 minute closely set fulcra may be seen on the anterior margins of the fins, wherever these 

 are distinctly exhibited in the specimen. 



A few traces of the internal skeleton, namely, of spinous processes and interspinous 

 bones, are found in this specimen as in the species previously described. 



Thus far the description of this Fish has hardly, if at all, differed from that of the 

 larger species, E. semistriatus, already described. But the external sculpture of the 

 scales affords a ready and most obvious means of distinguishing them. The scales on 

 the front of the flank (PI. V, fig. 3) are \ — inch high, by broad ; they get rather 

 smaller towards the tail and on the belly (fig. 4). Their sculpture maybe best described 

 from " squeezes " in modelling wax, made from the sharp impression of their outer surfaces 

 remaining in the stone ; the appearance of these being completely corroborated by the 

 broken remains, in places, of the outer surfaces of the scales themselves, occurring on the 

 opposite, and in other respects more imperfect side of the nodule. Their ornament consists 

 entirely of fine ridges, passing across the scale, which seems as in E. semistriatus to have 

 the posterior margin quite entire, not serrated as in some species of the genus. No 



1 The apex of the anal fin is not seen in the figure (PI. V, fig. 1), it having been cleared from the 

 matrix only after the execution of the Plate. 



