158 Recent Discoveries of Fossil Fishes in [| Februaty, 
RECENT DISCOVERIES OF FOSSIL FISHES IN THE 
DEVONIAN ROCKS OF CANADA. 
BY J. F. WHITEAVES. i 
Doo containing remains of fishes remarkably like those À 
of the old red sandstone of Scotland and Russia were discov: f 
ered by Mr. R. W. Ells, M.A., of the Geological Survey of Canada, 
in 1879, at Scaumenac bay, on the north shore of the mouth of 
the Restigouche river, almost immediately opposite Dalhousie. To 
a certain extent, however, this discovery had been anticipated by 
Dr. Abraham Gesner, who, in a report on the Geological Survey 
of New Brunswick, published in 1843, states that in the previous | 
year he found “ remains of fish and a small species of tortoise, 
with fossil foot-prints,” in the shales and sandstones of Scaumenat, 
or as he calls it, of Escuminac bay. Prior to 1879 all the rocks f 
which skirt this bay were regarded as belonging to the Bonavet- 
ture division of the Lower Carboniferous, but we now know that = 
at this locality the conglomerates and red sandstones of the Bona- 
venture series are underlaid, perhaps unconformably, by shales and 
sandstones of Devonian, and most probably of Upper Devonian 
age. E 
On behalf of the Canadian survey, Mr. A. H, Foord has de 
voted the whole of the summer seasons of 1880 and 1881 and 
part of the present summer to a systematic exploration of these A 
_fish-bearing beds, and has obtained from them an extensive and 
instructive series of specimens. ig 
© The genera and species of fishes collected by Mr. Foord ai 
other members of the survey at Scaumenac bay may be thus 
briefly indicated. =. 
1. Pterichthys canadensis. By far the most abundant fossil # 
this locality is a fine species of Pterichthys which has been Hal 
visionally described, under the name Z. canadensis, in the “ Amet 
can Journal of Science” for August, 1880. The specimens 
lected show nearly all the characters of the helmet, buckler, plas 
tron and pectoral spines in great perfection, but no vestige of e 
tail has yet been detected, nor of any of the fins other than the 
pectorals. In the number, contour and disposition of the p'a 
on the upper and under surface of the head and body, and in the 
shape and mode of articulation of the pectoral spines, the 
dian species agrees precisely with Pander’s well known T 
tion of Pterichthys, but its sculpture is exactly like that of Botheie d 
"i: 
