4 The Irish Naturalist. January, 



THE EARI^IEST KNOWN BKI.INURUS. 



A question having arisen in the Ottawa Naturalist as to the 

 occurrence of the interesting limuloid genus Belinurus in 

 Devonian strata, Prof. Cole {GeoL Mag., 1901, p. 52) obtained 

 permission to examine the original vSpecimens from Kiltorcan 

 in the collection of the Geological Survey in Dublin. He 

 gives figures of the specimens, which are at present labelled 

 as Lhnuloides. The author, however, cannot find hemiaspid 

 characters in them, and would retain them under the name 

 Beliiiurus, long ago assigned to them by W. H. Baily, and 

 accepted by Dr. Henry Woodward. 



CLASSIFICATION OF THE CARBONIFEROUS STRATA. 



Dr. Wheelton Hind and IVlr. J. A. Howe {Quart. Journ. GeoL 

 Soc. Lo?ido7iy vol. Ivii., 1901, pp. 347-404) discuss the ''Upper 

 lyimestone Shales " of Pendle Hill in I^ancashire, and regard 

 the fauna of these beds as later than that of the Yoredale 

 series. They establish, therefore, a '•' Pendleside Group" — 

 " series " or " stage " would have seemed a better term — for 

 beds beneath the Millstone Grit, but with an Upper Carboni- 

 ferous type of fauna. On p. 375 they refer certain " Upper 

 lyimestone Shales " in the north of County Dublin, and others 

 on Foynes Island, Co. lyimerick, to the " Pendleside Group." 

 The latter were originally described as Lower Coal-Measures, 

 Incidentally, a valuable revision of the fossil species known 

 from these Irish beds is given on the page referred to. 



CARBONIFEROUS CEPHAEOPODA OF IREEAND. 



Mr. G. C. Crick {Irish Naturalist, 1900, p. 14) has reviewed 

 the first two parts of Dr. Foord's fine monograph on Irish 

 Carboniferous Cephalopoda. Two parts have since appeared 

 {Palcson to graphical Society, 1900 and 1901). On p. 72, Dr. 

 Foord introduces a new genus, Mesochasmoceras^ the types of 

 which are in the collection of the Geological Survey in Dublin. 

 It is a form of the Coelonatdihis type, but is greatly flattened 

 laterally, and has a ver}^ large hollow space at the centre of 

 the coil. Three new species are described under Vestinautilus 

 alone, in connexion with which the author points out (p. 92) 

 how much might yet be done in collecting material from the 

 south-western counties. This subject is clearly within the 



