FOSSIL FROM MARYCHURCH. 471 



piece of water, rendered it particularly well calculated to 

 support a few of those very elegant birds — the mergansers, of 

 which a solitary male smew has now lived there for three 

 years, acquiring the female colours after midsummer without 

 shedding any of its feathers, and resuming its breeding dress 

 at the autumn moult, (none of the diving ducks changing their 

 plumage twice a year, like the others, although they all un- 

 dergo an analogous mutation of colour immediately at the 

 close of the season of propagation). This smew generally 

 associates with two females of the Clangula vulgaris, and 

 appears well disposed to breed if it had a mate of its own 

 species equally tame ; expressing its desires by a very pecu- 

 liar low rattling note, during the utterance of which the neck 

 is gradually stretched backward, with the beak pointing for- 

 ward : it will readily feed on bread, at least at times, for which 

 it is a particularly able scrambler ; and I have repeatedly seen 

 it come on shore, and preen its feathers within a few yards of 

 me, indeed it has taken food from my hand. The brilliancy 

 of its white nuptial livery renders its rapid evolutions under 

 water comparatively easy to follow with the eye. — Id. 



Note on the Fossil from Mary church, figured in ' Geolog. 

 Trans? — Last winter I took no little trouble to procure spe- 

 cimens of the singular fossil of which a figure is given by M. 

 De la Beche, in the l Geol. Trans.' as having been found at 

 Marychurch, in this neighbourhood. At that time all my en- 

 deavours were unsuccessful ; the very first visit, however, 

 which I paid this winter to a quarry at Barton, near Mary- 

 church, I procured two fragments, one of which apparently 

 shows the internal structure, but still so obscurely that I do 

 not think it worth while to send you a sketch. My fiiend 

 Dr. Battersby, however, in the course of the past summer, 

 obtained three specimens from a quarry near Newton Bushel, 

 which, being "weathered" show something of the interior 

 surface. As it is mentioned in a note to De la Beche's pa- 

 per, that a recent specimen allied to the fossil is deposited in 

 the museum of the Zoological Society, presented by an offi- 

 cer in the navy, 1 you will probably be glad to have a sketch 

 of the interior surface of the fossil to compare with the recent 

 specimen. 



The plates, when most perfect, are hexagonal and radiated 

 on the outside (fig. 62). The interior is divided into a num- 

 ber of little squares by raised lines ; those running in one di- 

 rection always pass over those in the contrary direction, and 



1 On enquiring at the Museum of the Zoological Society, we could not 

 meet with, or obtain any information respecting, the above specimen. — Ed. 



