239 

 BTYLONURUS SYMONDSII (Woodward). 



Ewyptenis Symondsii (Salter). 



The first notice of this crustacean was given by the Rev. W. S. Symondfl, 

 F.G.S., President of the Malvern Natural History Field Club, who read a 

 paper on the Eurppterus in the Old Red Sandstone of Herefordshire," at the 

 British Association for the advancement of Science, held at Dublin, August 28th, 

 1857. Mr. Symonds describes the fossil as having been found in strata of grey 

 building stone above the cornstones on the summit of Rowlestone Hill, near 

 Ewyas Harold and Pontrilas, in this county. He says • "It was discovered by 

 an intelligent labouring man in a quarry near the church at Rowlestone, between 

 Hereford and Abergavenny, where I examined the correlation of the beds, to 

 which I was conducted by the Rev, "W. Wenman, who had obtained possession 

 of the Eurypterus."* The specimen was described by J. W. Salter, Esq., 

 F.G.S., of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, in the Quarterly .Journal of 

 the Geological Society (vol. 15, No. 58, p. 230). "The specimen," says Mr. 

 Salter," of which we have only the exterior cast of the head perfectly repre- 

 senting the surface is impressed on a slab of brownish-grey micaceous grit. It 

 is 2 4-lOth inches long by 2 6-lOth inches broad at the wide anterior part, the 

 greatest breadth being at the anterior third ; the hinder edge is only two inches 

 wide. The front margin is arched, somewhat truncate in front, and gibbous at 

 the sides. The ridge is continuous all round with the somewhat elevated border 

 of tho sides in such a way that the carapace appears complete without the 

 addition of the anterior border. A deep Y shaped vertical furrow, forked 

 upward, at an angle of 30° divides the space between the eyes and occupies 

 the middle third of the head. The space between the branches is very convex. 

 The eyes are circumscribed by a sunken space ; they are placed more than half 

 way up the head and as wide apart as they are distant from the outer margin. 

 As they are abraded in this unique specimen, their shape and convexity are not 

 to be ascertained ; they appear to have been large and rounded. The great 

 size of this species distinguishes it from any previously described, except 

 Eurypterus Sconleri, the head of which is eight inches wide." 



Since the publication of Mr. Salter's paper in 1857, Mr. Henry Woodward, 

 F.G.S., F.Z.S., of the British Museum, so well known by bis researches on Fossil 

 and Recent Crustacea, has determined that the fossil under consideration 

 belongs to the genus Stylonnrus, of the order Eurypteridce, and as such it is 

 figured in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society (Vol. 21, No. 84, 

 p. 483), with several other species of Stylonurus. It is also figured by Sir R. I. 

 Murchison in his last edition of Siluria, p. 246. 



The original specimen is now in the Museum of the School of Mines in 

 Jermyn-street, and is the only specimen of this species as yet discovered, beyond 

 some few fragments which have since been found in the same quarry. 



• Edin. New Phil. Joamal, October 1867, vol. 6, No. 2, p. 267. 



