366

THE POSSILIEEROUS DEPOSITS

and in a fern of this Upper deposit, laid open by our inge-nious member, Mr John Stewart, in Prestonhaugh quarrynear Dunse, he recognised his Irish Cyclopterus. As MrStewart found the Scotch specimen associated with plates otPterichthys major and scales of Holoptychius Nobilissimus ,—two of the most characteristic ichthyolites of the Upper for-mation,—there can be no hesitation in assigning to it itsplace in the scale; and, «f course, its position as an UpperOld Red fossil in Scotland may be held to determine that ofthe interesting group to which it is found to belong on theIrish side of the Channel.

With respect to the true place of that deposit of palequartzose sandstone which overlies the Upper Old Red inMoray, and has become famous in geology for its reptilianfoot-tracks, its unique Stagonolepis, and its well-marked cu-rious little reptile the Telerpeton Elginense, we are not yetprovided with any determining evidence. No species com-mon to the Upper Old Red and this rock has yet been dis-covered in either deposit. Mr Patrick Duff, to whose la-bours we owe both the Stagonolepis and the Telerpeton , is inpossession (with the exception of the reptilian footprints de-tected by Captain Brickendon) of all the few fossils foundin the superior rock, and of a very ample collection of thoseof the underlying one; but I have seen nothing in the twosets in the least resembling each other. The lata Dr Man-tell supposed, indeed, he had traced a considerable resem-blance between the scales of Stagonolepis and those of a ga-noid of Dura Den,—the Glyptopomus. They bear, however,a much closer resemblance to the scales of the MystriosaurusMuenstere, a reptile of the Lias of Munich , of which I exhi-bited a good print to this Society about three years ago, theuse of which I owed to the kindness of Sir Charles LyelL When visiting a quarry in this northern deposit several yearssince, I was informed by the workmen that they frequently