[PROC. Roy. Soc. Victoria, 19 (N.S.), Pt. II., 1906]. 



Airr. I v. — New or Little-hnoivn Victorian Fossils in 

 the National Museum. 



Part YITI. — Some Palakozoic Brittlk-stars of the 

 Melbournian Series. 



By FREDERICK CHAPMAN, A.L.S., &c , 



National Museum. 



(With Plates VI.-VIII.) 



[Eead 11th October, 1906]. 



Introductory Remarks. 



An examination of the Silurian Ophiuricls and Asterids in the 

 National Museum aifords ample proof that our Victorian palaeo- 

 zoic rocks are nearly as rich in these forms of Itfe as the Ludlow 

 series of Herefordshire and the Lake District in England, or the 

 closely correlated strata of N. America. Both the mudstones and 

 the argillaceous sandstones of the Melbournian division of our 

 Silurian rocks have furnished numerous remains of the former 

 group, the Brittle-stars, and perhaps needless to say, the mudstones 

 retain the sharper impressions of the fossils. So tine-grained, 

 however, is some of the sandstone rock that a sharp positive in 

 wax or plasticine can often be obtained from it, shewing the 

 finer ossicles or even the spines. 



The genus newly described here under the name of Gregoriura 

 is represented by a large and ornate species possessing somewhat 

 remarkable characters, and for which a place may be found, 

 provisionally, in the family Protasteridae. Another ophiurid, 

 of which further details are now made known, was described 

 by Prof. J. W. Gregory in 1889^ under the name of Pro- 

 taster brisingoides, and was at the time the only described 

 species of this particular group from Victorian palaeozoic rocks. 



1 Geol. Mag., dec. iii., vol. vi., 1889, p. 24. 



