340 Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles. 



Fishes, because of their being very distinct from the families 

 which now predominate. 



Of the families of this order, some are composed of living 

 Fishes, as the Goniodonts, Agass. the Siluroids, Cuv. and 

 the Accipenser, Agass, ; but the great bulk of the species 

 composing the order are extinct ; and are found throughout 

 all the geological formations, from the coal measures up- 

 wards. M. Agassiz found but one single fragment, which 

 could be referred to any of the species of this order in beds 

 anterior to the coal formation. To take the families as 

 they stand in the preceding synopsis, all the genera of 

 the family Lepidoids are found in beds anterior to the 

 Jurasic formation,* and have no representative species now 

 existing on the earth. The family consists of 11 genera, 

 as already enumerated ; of the first of these, namely Acan- 

 thodes, one species is found in the coal formation at Saar- 

 bruck. Of the 2d genus Catopterzis, four species are found 

 in the slates of Caithness. Of the 3d genus Amblypterus } 

 Agass., one species is found at Ceara in the Brazils, and 

 four in the coal formation at Saarbruck. 



Of the genus Paloeoniscus, Agass., six species are found 

 in the coal formation ; one in the coal formation of America 

 at Sunderland in Massachussets, and Westfield in Connecti- 

 cut, and five in that of Europe, chiefly at Munster-Appel, 

 and at Muse near Autun ; three are found in the Zechsteinf 



* This is the foreign equivalent of our English Oolite, which, on the 

 continent assumes a calcareous character, and constitutes the principal 

 formation of the Jura mountains. The Oolite occupies an intermediate 

 position between the chalk and New Red Sandstone formations. — Ed. 



t The Zeclistein is the German equivalent of the English magnesian 

 limestone, it forms the lowest series of the New Red System, and rests 

 immediately on the coal measures.— vide Cal. Journ. Nat. Hist. vol. i. 

 p. 45. 



It is necessary to refer to these synonyms in order to show how 

 the fossil fishes of the same genera are always found in the same 

 groups of strata, in whatever part of the world they occur.— Ed. 



