38 Occurrence of Voliita Lamberti on the Suffolk Coast, 



elegant British tertiary fossils, must be familiar to those who 

 are acquainted with the works of Parkinson and Sowerby ; and 

 it therefore possesses no interest on the score of novelty; but 

 there are some very curious points connected with its history 

 which are not generally known, and to which I am particularly 

 anxious attention should be directed. Specimens of this shell 

 are not uncommon in the cabinets of collectors, but I believe 

 that few of the possessors are aware of the sources from 

 which they are generally derived. Nine tenths, or, perhaps, 

 a still larger proportion of the whole number that I have seen, 

 instead of coming, as is usually thought, from the crag, have 

 been taken from the beach along the Suffolk coast, and prin- 

 cipally at Walton and Felixtow, two adjoining localities (a 

 few miles east of Harwich), where they are generally found 

 at the time of very low tides. 



The mere occurrence of this fossil under the circumstances 

 above mentioned would not in itself excite our surprise, since 

 it is known that rivers in their course carry down to the sea 

 such species of land shells as inhabit their banks; and where 

 the crag is intersected by estuaries, the fossil shells would, 

 from similar causes, be liable to be sw T ept down into the Ger- 

 man Ocean, and we should then naturally expect to find some 

 of them washed on shore in common with the shells of recent 

 Mollusca. But, as the case really stands, there are two diffi- 

 culties to be explained : first, the great number of these 

 littoral volutes ; and, secondly, the different state of preserva- 

 tion which they exhibit, when contrasted with such specimens 

 as are actually taken from the crag deposit. Speaking of this 

 volute, Parkinson says, "the most rare shell of this genus 

 found in this island is the fossil volute of Harwich " (Organic 

 Remains, vol. iii. p. 56,) ; and certainly it is not by any means 

 a shell of very common occurrence in the deposit to which it 

 is always referred ; and, when found there, it is generally in 

 so fragile a state, that tolerably perfect specimens are hardly 

 ever obtained. But from one of the soldiers' wives at the 

 Fort, on the Suffolk side of Harwich harbour, I have obtained 

 more of these littoral volutes, than all the specimens put 

 together that I have seen from the whole extent of the crag 

 formation ; and the shells thus found are not only often much 

 larger than those in the crag, but many of them appear to 

 have undergone scarcely any change, save the loss of colour ; 

 in fact, were they not almost as strong as recent shells, they 

 would stand but little chance of reaching the shore, unless in 

 fragments, which is, of course, the case with a great many of 

 them. 



In a succeeding paragraph to that which I have already 



