PAL^ONTOLOGICAL NOTES ON THE SILURIAN 

 STRATA IN THE WOOLHOPE VALLEY. 



By tlie Rev. P. B. BEODIE, M.A., F.G.S., Vice-President of the WarwicksHr* 

 NaturaKats' Field Club. 



The fossils of the Ludlow formation and "Wenlock Limestone, including 

 in the latter the Woolhope Limestone, which is only a local development of 

 the "Wenlock series, are so weU known that it may seem a work of mere repe- 

 tition to make any remarks upon them ; but a recent sojoiirn of a fortnight in 

 this interesting and most instructive district, during which I visited nearly every 

 quarry, escarpment, and available section, has led me to form some conclusions 

 respecting the range and number of the organic remains which may be worth 

 recording. 



In this part of the Silurian area, the sea evidently abounded in corals, 

 as it did elsewhere ; many of them — especially Stromatapora striateUa, Hahjsites 

 catenulatics, Favositcs Gothlandka, and some of the larger and frequent species 

 of Heliolites, Arachno2')hyUum typus, Strcphodes vcrtniculoides, and Cyathophyllum 

 articulatum, — being of massive form, are often well preserved, and widely distri- 

 buted ; but I failed to detect many, if any, of the rarer genera which occur at 

 Dudley, "Wenlock, and other places. I was particularly struck with the com- 

 parative paucity of shells, both gasteropods and molluscs, Leptcuna eur/lypha, 

 Atrypa reticularis (a very ubiquitous shell, being the only one which passes 

 into the Devonian and Carboniferous), Spirifer, Euomplialus, and a few others 

 were common enough, and in this respect differ widely from the richer districts 

 of Malvern, Dudley, &c. In the catalogue of the Geological Survey a larger 

 list of Conchifera is given, including many genera I did not meet with, but still 

 the number is not great, and absolutely small when compared with other upper 

 Palreosoic regions, and so far bears out the view advocated in this paper. The 

 Wenlock Shale, and lower Ludlow beds contain, as might be expected, a larger 

 assemblage, but nothing like the remarkable abundance and variety Which occurs 

 in the Wenlock Shale at Ledbury, Walsall, and Dudley. The same may be 

 said of the Crustacea, which appear to be positively rare. The common genera, 

 CaJymene Blumenbachii and Phacops caudatus, being apparently very sparingly 



