CYPRINUS sciAmossEus. So supposed from the exami nation of the last nine vertebra only.
The country of Oeningen is another repository of fishes, supposed to belong to fresh water. They ore found at the issue of the Rhine from the Lake of Constance, near the village of Stein, at about 500 feet above the level of the lake. The rock is a calcareous fetid shale, containing also fragments of vegetables. The Catalogue published by Saussure, from Lavater's cabinet, contains the follow ing species.
We can only say, that if this intermixture of marine and fresh-water fish exists in this place, and if there is no error in the assignment of species, the geology of this dis trict requires to be more carefully examined.
In the Vivarais, a league from Privas, Faujas has found skeletons of fish in a very spongy schistose marl, among which he thinks he has distinguished the Cyprinus idus. Near Cadiz there has been found either the Cyprinus tinca, or the leuciscus, as it is supposed. Near Ville Franche, in the department of the Aveyron, there has also been found a specimen in a calcareo.bituminous marl, which resembles the Monopterus gigas, but is supposed to be more probably the Cyprinus elvensis. Bourguet describes some icthyolites as found at Wasch in Bohemia, but they have not been investigated. The nature of those mentioned as existing in China is equally unknown. Of the fish found in the coal formations of the Continent, our information is here very scanty. It is supposed that the PaIxothrissum equilobum and Stromatxus rhombus exist in this series.
Even where entire fish are not found, however, it is not uncommon to meet with separate parts, and these are commonly the teeth and bones, as being the most durable. Heads resembling those of the pike and gurnard are sometimes found in the clay of Sheppey, and, among the parts, remains of the gills, and even the form of the eyes, have been ascertained. The bones of the jaws sometimes also occur, in different situations, as do the vertebral and smaller bones, in fragments, or more or less entire. The teeth, as might be expected, are better preserved. In ancient times, when the real nature of these was unknown, they were mistaken for many different objects; among the rest, for the tongues of animals, when they were called glossopetrx. Such teeth are of various forms, and often of great size; having been met with even four inches in length. Some of them have been conceived to belong to the shark tribe; and among these have been named the Squalus carcharias, Zygena, Mustelus, Galcus, Cincreus and Stellaris. Malta is noted for containing some of these, and they occur in our own country, in the chalk and elsewhere, and some of the longer ones are mistaken for the beaks of birds by the quarrymen.
The palate teeth arc no less remarkable than these sharp distinct ones, which are the incisori, or cutting and piercing teeth of the fishes. The palate teeth serve the purpose of detaining the prey chiefly, though there arc also, in some tribes, molares. These occur fixed in the palate, in their regular rows, sometimes 'separate. The blunt and separate ones have been called bufonites, and serpent's eyes, and many imaginary virtues have been at tributed to them. These arc the grinders of some fish resembling the genus Anarrhychas; some of them that of sparus. What are called petrified leeches, appear to have been a species of palatal tooth belonging to some fish, which in their original state have covered the palate in rows, though now sometimes found single. But the tooth Cd palates present many different appearances, and many, if not all of them, belong to fish that are now probably unknown. A bone resembling the saw of the saw-fish has also been found in Gloucestershire, and the long proboscis of some unknown fish sometimes occurs in the clay. Among such detached parts, the scales of some fishes have also been found, and sometimes even with their peculiar lustre remaining. In our own country, these occur both in the clay and in the chalk.
But we shall not terminate this subject without adding to this list the more minute and more recent enumeration of M. Blainville; lamenting, at the same time, that it is a part of the subject that could scarcely he rendered intelli gible even by figures of each specimen. The Ichthyo domes, or fossil teeth, are generally divided into the flat, or glossopetrx, and the round. The latter are called by different names; bufonites, as we just remarked, batra chites, &c. The glossopetrce of Malta are, by the vulgar in that island, supposed to be petrified tongues of serpents; so converted by St. Paul. Besides this island, they abound in Calabria and Tuscany, about Sienna and Piacenza, and near Brussels, Montpellier, Maestricht, Paris, and many other places. In attempting to refer these to the species of fish to which they have belonged, it must be remember ed that in the genus Squalus, to which most, if not all of them may be referred, the different teeth vary much in shape, as well as in size, in the same jaw. Fortunately, these differences are very steady ; so that it is supposed easy to determine the species of Squall's from the teeth alone. Accordingly, the following list is given.
Teeth of the Squalus.