BUFFALO SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCES 21 



SYSTEMATIC DESCRIPTION OF THE COLLECTION 



EUOSTRACOPHORI^^ 



Genus Phyllolepis Agassiz 



Until very recently this genus was known only by detached 

 plates, and was one of the puzzles of paleichthyology. But the 

 discovery of a nearly complete specimen showing the plates in 

 natural association, has solved this puzzle. This remarkable speci- 

 men was in a collection obtained from an Old Red Sandstone quarry, 

 at Dura Den, Scotland, which had been closed for several decades, 

 but was reopened a few years ago by a committee of the British 

 Association, for the purpose of obtaining a collection of the fossil 

 fishes known to occur in it. 



A prehminary account of the Phyllolepis specimen, with a figure, 

 was published by A. S. Woodward in 1915 (Rept. Brit. Assoc. Adv. 

 Sci., 84th Meeting, p. 122, pi. ii). His conclusion as to its afiSnities is 

 as foUows: 



The whole fossil is most suggestive of the ventral aspect of the curious 

 Devonian Ostracoderms Drepanaspis and Psammosteus. It agrees with Drepan- 

 aspis in showing two principal median plates one behind the other, though in 

 Phyllolepis they are more nearly equal in size. It corresponds with Psammosteus 

 in exhibiting a prominent pair of lateral cornua at the hinder end of the series 

 of small marginal plates, opposite the middle of the posterior median plate. It 

 differs from both in lacking separate small tessellated plates. There is, therefore, 

 not much doubt that Phyllolepis is a genus of Ostracoderms most nearly allied 

 to the Drepanaspidae or Psammosteidse. 



Phyllolepis elegans, n. sp. 



(PI. 32, fig. 2) 

 E 2438 Type. — An elliptical plate 5 by 11.5 cm. 



Formation and Locality. — Rhinestreet shale (Portage); Forks of 

 Cazenovia Creek, near E. Aurora, N. Y. Collected by W. L. Bryant. 



Elliptical plates ornamented with parallel lines arranged concen- 

 trically around a point somewhat nearer one extremity of the plate 

 than the other. Lines near the periphery a millimeter or more in 

 width, becoming progressively finer toward the centre. Central por- 



'^The term Euostracophori, to include the Ostracoderms as commonly understood, minus the 

 Antiaicbi, was introduced by Hussakof in 1906. Mem. Anier. Mus. Nat. Hist., ix, 135. 



