52 
ON THE GENUS MEGALICHTHYS, AGASSIZ : ITS HISTORY, SYSTEMATIC 
POSITION, AND STRUCTURE. 
BY EDGAR D. WELLBURN, L.R.C.P. AND S.E., F.R.I.P.H., F.G.S., ETC. 
{Read Xovemher 2nd^ 1899.) 
INTRODUCTION. 
At the meeting of the British Association, held at Edinburgh 
in 1834, Dr. Hibbert read a paper before the Geological Section 
on a series of fossil remains found in the Burdiehouse limestone, 
near Edinburgh. These contained a series of fish remains, among 
which, besides Gyracanthus, PalceoniscuSy Erynotus, Pygopterus, 
were some bones, scales, and teeth, remarkable for their great 
size, and also some smaller rhombic enamelled scales."^ 
Prof. Agassiz being present the remains were submitted to 
him for his opinion. They proving new and strange to him, 
he, Drs. Hibbert and Buckland formed a committee to report 
on them. About this time Agassiz, whilst on a visit to Leeds, 
saw in the Museum there a fine and well-preserved head and 
part of the trunk of a fish, which he seems to have considered 
of the same species as the Burdiehouse remains. This new find 
having relieved his doubts concerning the Burdiehouse fish, he 
took the Leeds specimen as the t3^pe of his genus Megalichthys, 
and at that time included the large rounded scales and gigantic 
teeth, as well as the smaller rhombic enamelled scales, in this 
genus. Later, however, he separated the large rounded scales 
and the teeth, placing them in a new genus Holoptychius.j 
* See Poissons Fossils (Agassiz), Vol. 2, Pt. I., pp. 89 and 90. 
t Poissons Foss., Vol. 2, Part L, p. 90. 
