50 RAMSAY H. TRAQUAIR’S 
The bones of the shoulder girdle present nothing calling for special remark ; 
their external surfaces are sculptured in a manner similar to the bones of the head. 
The scales are moderate in size, of the usual rhomboidal shape over the 
body generally, but there is a median row of specially large imbricating ones, of 
a more or less oval shape, extending from the occiput to the origin of the 
dorsal fin, besides the usual V-scales along the upper lobe of the tail. There 
are about thirty oblique dorso-ventral bands of scales from the shoulder girdle 
to the commencement of the lower lobe of the caudal fin. The ganoid area of 
the flank scales shows, in the first place, a few delicate yet sharp vertical 
erooves close to and parallel with the anterior margin, succeeding which, the 
greater part of the exposed surface is sculptured with five or six prominent 
straight ridges running across the scale nearly parallel with the upper and 
lower margins, and ending in sharp points on the posterior margin. A very 
similar sculpture pervades the entire squamation, though the corresponding 
ridges on the median scales of the back are somewhat convergent, and the 
minute lozenge-shaped scales of the caudal body-prolongation are nearly smooth. 
I have seen no trace of either pectoral or ventral fins. The dorsal and anal 
fins are nearly opposite each other, the former commencing only a little more 
anteriorly ; both fins are very similar in shape, being short-based and trian- 
eular-acuminate ; each contains about twenty rays, which are delicate, smooth, 
distantly articulated, and dichotomising towards their extremities. The caudal 
is very heterocercal, deeply cleft, and inequilobate, the upper lobe being elon- 
gated; the rays are delicate, smooth, and distantly articulated; the lower lobe 
contains about fourteen rays, but the number of those in the upper one cannot 
be accurately ascertained. 
Remarks.—This very decidedly marked species closely resembles the fore- 
going in size, in the general form of the body and fins, in the shortness of the 
head with its large orbit, and in the direction of the suspensorium, but it may 
at the first glance be distinguished from it by the bold and peculiar sculpture 
of the scales ; the ridges in the head bones are likewise different in character, 
and the dorsal and anal fins seem somewhat more anteriorly placed. In addi- 
tion to these diagnostic characters, an examination of the head reveals certain 
osteological differences, which might easily be considered as indicating a distinc- 
tion of genus. Of these differences the most striking is the form of the maxilla, 
which here assumes a somewhat triangular form, reminding us of that bone in 
Mesolepis, while in Canobius Ramsayi it is not so much modified from the 
ordinary paleoniscid type. Our knowledge of the osteology of the head of 
Canobius elegantulus being, however, still by no means complete, it will, I 
think, be at present more convenient to be satisfied with the more obvious 
resemblances of general configuration, and to leave it provisionally at least in 
the same genus with Canobius Ramsayt. 
