540 



REV. P. B. BEODIE ON AN UPPER 



are anterior rays, while those preserved in the Shrewley fish are not 

 the front ones. Another specimen, also belonging to the Nottingham 

 Museum, and, apparently, part of a similar fish, has these entire 

 dorsal fin-rays very well shown (PI. XXII. fig. 8). 



On the same slab with No. 1 specimen there are fragments of 

 what appears to be a Palasoniscoid fish. This is a portion of an 

 extremely heterocercal tail (marked No. 2), the upper lobe being 

 covered by numerous slender elongated scales. Some of the more 

 anterior and ventral scales of this fragment have longitudinal stria- 

 tions : and other fragments on the same slab, with strongly striated 

 scales (marked 3 and 4), probably belong to the same fish. The 

 markings on these scales are not easy to decipher, but there seem to 

 be five or six oblique ridges traversing the exposed part of the scale. 

 Figure 9 fairly represents one of these scales, which are much like 

 those of Elonielithys given by Dr. Traquair *. 



On another slab there are fragments of a larger fish, as indicated 

 by some masses of scales ; but these are too fragmentary to call for 

 more than a passing notice. 



Notes on the Upper Keuper Section at Shrewley where the Fish were 

 found, and on the Trias generally in Warwickshire. By the 

 Rev. P. B. Brodie, M.A., F.G.S. 



As a rule, the Trias in Great Britain, considering its extent and 

 thickness, is noted for the paucity and rarity of fossils, perhaps it is 

 the most unfossiliferous of all rocks containing organic remains in 

 this country, especially when compared with the abundant fauna 

 and flora of the Xew Red Sandstone in Europe and other parts of 

 the world. Any addition therefore to our knowledge in a field so 

 comparatively barren is of considerable interest to the Palseontolo- 

 gist. It is now many years ago since I discovered PaloEoniscus 

 superstes, apparently the last of the genus, in the Upper Keuper at 

 Rowington. Last summer, in compan}' with my son, Mr. Douglas 

 Brodie, I visited the sandstone-quarry at Shrewley, and he drew 

 my attention to some obscure remains on a slab of sandstone which, 

 when cleared, turned out to be portions of fish, unfortunately 

 fragmentary and ill preserved, belonging to the genus Semionotust, 

 which, though frequent in the German Keuper at Coburg, Stuttgardt, 

 and elsewhere, has not been previously recognized here. On a 

 second visit I found a few more in a somewhat better condition, all 

 of which I placed in Mr. Xewton's hands. On the slab on which 



* Pal. Soc. 1877, pi. v. 



t Another and larger fish was found at Shrewley some years ago, but the 

 owner will not part with it nor allow it to be figured or described. I showed 

 a photograph I have of it to Sir P. Egerton, at the meeting of the British 

 Association at Exeter in 1869, and he thought it might be a species of Semionotus. 

 It measures from head to tail about 5 inches in length and half an inch broad 

 in the centre of the body ; it stands out in relief, lying on its back on a block 

 of sandstone, and resembles in its mode of preservation some of the fine fish 

 from the llminster Lias, discovered by my friend the late 0. Moore. In the 

 New Red Sandstone of North America several fossil fish have been met with 

 and will shortly be figured and described by Dr. Newberry, of the School of 



