On the Characters of some new Fossil Fish from the Lias of Lyme Regis

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Abstract
O f all the noted localities for fossil remains in Great Britain not one exceeds Lyme Regis for the number, variety, and interest of the forms of ancient life which have been there discovered. Ever since the earliest results of Miss Mary Anning's extraordinary success in collecting remains of extinct animals were made known, scarcely a year has passed without some revelation of Liassic times having been elicited by the assiduity of the collectors in that far-famed locality. Of fish alone we now reckon thirty-one distinct genera, comprising seventy-nine species; and of the latter not more than two or three have been clearly identified as occurring elsewhere. The following is a short description of some of the novelties which have occurred in the last year or two. As the specimens are large and worthy of full pictorial illustration, the more detailed account will be reserved for one of the forthcoming Decades of the Memoirs of the Geological Survey. O steorachis macrocephalus , gen. et spec. nov., Egerton. The description of this new genus is taken from three specimens in the collection of the Earl of Enniskillen. The most remarkable features in them are the massive dimensions, and complete ossification, of the bodies of the vertebræ; and these have sugwested the generic appellation. They all appear to belong to one species, characterized by the large size of the head and the multiplicity of the teeth. It is quite possible that a small fragment of a jaw in the same collection, named by Professor Agassiz

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