The scales which covered the creature’s body (fig. 25) were, in proportion to its size, considerably smaller and thinner than those of the _Holoptychius_, which, however, they greatly resemble in their general style of sculpture. Each, on the lower part of its exposed field, was, we see, fretted by longitudinal anastomosing ridges, which, in the upper part, break into detached angular tubercles, placed with the apex downwards, and hollowed, leaf-like, in the centre; while that covered portion which was overlaid by the scales immediately above we find thickly pitted by microscopic hollows, that give to this part of the field, viewed under a tolerably high magnifying power, a honeycombed appearance. The central and lower parts of the interior surface of the scale (_a_) are in most of the specimens irregularly roughened; while a broad, smooth band, which runs along the top and sides, and seems to have furnished the line of attachment to the creature’s body, is comparatively smooth. The exterior carvings, though they demand the assistance of the lens to see them aright, are of singular elegance and beauty; as perhaps the accompanying wood-cut, (fig. 26,) which gives a magnified view of a portion of the scale immediately above (_b_) from the middle of the honeycombed field on the right side, to where the anastomosing ridges bend gracefully in their descent, may in some degree serve to show. I have seen a richly inlaid coat of mail, which was once worn by the puissant Charles the Fifth; but its elaborate carvings, though they belonged to the age of Benvenuto Cellini, were rude and unfinished, compared with those which fretted the armor of the _Asterolepis_. [Illustration: Fig. 27. CRANIAL BUCKLER OF ASTEROLEPIS. (One fifth nat. size, linear.)]