"In the summer of 1827," says Dr. Fleming, "I obtained from Drumdryan quarry, to the south of Cupar, situate in the higher strata of yellow sandstone, certain organisms, which I readily referred to the scales of vertebrated animals, probably those of a fish. The largest (see Plate II., fig. 1, '_figure of a scale of the Holoptychius_') was one inch and one tenth in length, about one inch and two tenths in breadth, and not exceeding the fiftieth of an inch in thickness. The part which, when in its natural position, had been imbedded in the cuticle, is comparatively smooth, exhibiting, however, in a very distinct manner, the semicircularly parallel layers of growth with obsolete diverging striæ, giving to the surface, when under a lens, a reticulated aspect. The part naturally exposed is marked with longitudinal, waved, rounded, anastomosing ridges, which are smooth and glossy. The whole of the inside of the scale is smooth, though exhibiting with tolerable distinctness the layers of growth. The form and structure of the object indicated plainly enough that it had been a scale, a conclusion confirmed by the detection of the phosphate of lime in its composition. At this period I inserted a short notice of the occurrence of these scales in our provincial newspaper, the _Fife Herald_, for the purpose of attracting the attention of the workmen and others in the neighborhood, in order to secure the preservation of any other specimens which might occur. "Nearly a year after these scales had been discovered, not only in the upper, but even in some of the lower beds of the Yellow Sandstone, I was informed that _oyster shells_ had been found in a quarry in the Old Red Sandstone at Clashbennie, near Errol, in Perthshire, and that specimens were in the possession of a gentleman in Perth. Interested in the intelligence, I lost no time in visiting Perth, and was gratified to find that the supposed oyster shells were, in fact, similar to those which I had ascertained to occur in a higher part of the series. The scales were, however, of a larger size, some of them exceeding three inches in length, and one eighth of an inch in thickness. Upon my visit to the quarry, I found the scales, as in the Yellow Sandstone, most abundant in those parts of the rock which exhibited a brecciated aspect. Many patches a foot in length, full of scales, have occurred; but as yet no entire impression of a fish has been obtained.