Mr. Bensted, in his ‘Notes on the Geology of Maidstone’ (p. 336) has referred to certain vegetable remains from the Kentish rag-beds of his quarry, under the title of Dracœna Benstedii; and under this name the specimen stands recorded in Professor Morris's Catalogue. The entry there is “Dracœna (Linn.) Benstedii, König, Mus. Brit., L. G. S., Maidstone,” but the name of the class is not given, whether by omission or from some special reason we are not aware. The recent Dracœnœ are referred by botanists to the Liliaceæ, and the best-known species is that which supplies the fine pigment used by house-grainers, and commonly known as “Dragon's blood.”

The Dragon-trees form a most extraordinary and celebrated genus of monocotyledonous vegetables. They belong to the Asparagus family; and with the appearance and interior organization of the Palms, they are said to approach them still nearer in their fructification.

All the kinds are said to delight in arid soils, and to flourish on the shores by the sea, ranging from that level to eight hundred or a thousand yards on the mountains.

Twenty to twenty-five species are recorded as natural to intertropical regions—India, China, the islands of the Pacific, Cape of Good Hope, and the coast and islands of South Africa. One only exists in the northern part of the American continent, in the far north of Canada, or on the borders of the icy regions of Hudson. Bay.

In the year 1860, when engaged in drawing up a list of the fossils known to occur in the Lower Old Red Sandstone of Scotland, we had occasion to remark that, with the exception of the Pteraspis, we had found in our northern rocks the various fossils of the equivalent beds in England, and many others besides, indicating an extensive piscine fauna in that epoch of geological history. We have now to remove that exception, for Pteraspis does occur with us. Some very fine specimens have recently been found in our Scottish rocks, and from their examination we are not only able to discern that fragments which have been many years in our possession, and which we could not refer to any known fossil, belong to that palæozoic fish, but we are also encouraged to attempt the restoration of the remarkable buckler, composed of solid bone, in which this ancient denizen of the deep was encased.

Figure 1. In the construction of this diagram three fossil specimens have been employed. These specimens are similar in their proportions and in the method of their preservation, and their exact measurements have been followed in the figure. The first specimen, used for this diagram, exhibits very beautifully the form of the shield with the terminal horns, and the distinct eye-sockets. The eyes are placed on the margin of the shield, and their impression is also seen on a cast in the stone of this specimen. The second specimen is the prolonged central termination of the shield, which has been broken off at the ridge which terminates on either side in the horns. The third specimen show’s the junction of this central prolongation with the shield. All the three specimens have a high central ridge, and still retain something of the graceful outline of the living form. As preserved in the stone these specimens show only the nacreous layer, the other component layers of the bone of the Pteraspis having perished in their case.