32 RAMSAY H. TRAQUAIR’S 
specimen up to the bifurcation of the caudal, or more than four times in the 
estimated total. The depth of the tail pedicle is ? inch. 
The head is much crushed, and its bones badly preserved, its structure is, 
however, clearly seen to be typically paleoniscoid, with very oblique suspen- 
sorium, anteriorly placed orbit, wide gape, and powerful jaws. The operculum 
seems somewhat long and narrow, the interoperculum square-shaped. No 
teeth are visible. 
The bones of the head being almost everywhere seen only from their 
internal surfaces, their external ornamentation is but scantily exhibited. 
Evidences of a minutely tubercular sculpture, the tubercles being sometimes 
rounded, sometimes slightly elongated or confluent, are seen on the parietal 
and ethmoidal regions of the cranial roof as well as, in impression, on a small 
portion of the interoperculum. Towards the extremity of the mandible also, 
a patch of the outer surface of the bone is seen, but here the ornamentation 
consists of closely set delicate wavy ridges running in a longitudinal direction. 
The bones of the shoulder girdle—supra-clavicular, clavicle, and infra- 
clavicular—are pretty well shown, the two latter from their internal aspects 
only. The outer surface of the supra-clavicular displays some traces of a 
longitudinal striated sculpture. 
The scales are rather small for the size of the fish, especially at the tail, to- 
wards which region they rapidly diminish. In the flank scales (fig. 2) the covered 
area is narrow; the sculptured one presents a few fine ridges and grooves 
along the anterior margin, the rest of the space being covered with small 
closely set tubercles, sometimes rounded, sometimes elongated or confluent. 
Towards the tail (fig 3), and also towards the dorsal and ventrical margins, the 
tuberculations largely gives way to a ridged ornamentation; the ridges running 
parallel with the anterior and inferior margins, sometimes also with the 
superior, while the postero-central portion of the area is occupied by tubercles, 
tending to become confluent, with diagonal ridges which are a little coarser, 
and more wavy and irregular than the marginal ones already mentioned. 
Powerful longitudinally ridged V-scales protect the upper margin of the caudal 
body-prolongation, which is of great strength, and the acute lozenge-shaped 
scales which clothe its sides are of small size, arranged in many rows, and, so 
far as they are traceable, ornamented with sharp diagonal ridges. 
On the attached surface of the body-scales, the vertical keel is rather 
delicate, yet very distinctly defined, as is also the socket for the reception of 
the articular spine of the scale next below; this spine, which is of moderate 
size, arising from the upper margin of the scale close behind the upper termina- 
tion of the keel. As usual, spines and sockets disappear in the scales of the 
posterior part of the body. No denticulations are observable on the posterior 
margins of any of the scales. 
