65 
The Saurians, chiefly Icthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus are 
well known genera in the Lias, and I am not aware that 
there are any species which are peculiar to the bone breccia 
of the Rheetics. The range of this singular stratum is very 
considerable, extending over an area of nearly 200 miles, 
which in such a thin stratum is rather remarkable. It has 
been noticed at Axmouth in Devonshire, at Aust Cliff, and 
Watchet, and elsewhere in Somersetshire, Lyme Dorset, at 
Pennarth and St. Hiliary in Glamorganshire, in the Mendips 
near Wells,t Westbury and Wainlode Cliffs in Gloucester- 
shire,} Coombe Hill near Tewkesbury, near Binton in 
Warwickshire, Knowle being its furthest northern limit{ in 
this county, and it has been observed at Gainsborough, still 
further to the north; but has not yet been detected in 
Yorkshire. There are other interesting points inland where 
it is known, and would no doubt be found at many others if 
available sections were afforded. 
In 1861, my friend Mr. C. Moore, in an important 
paper on the Rheetic beds, in the Journal of the Geological 
Society, 1861, pointed out the identity of the series of 
rocks which contain the bone beds with certain formations in 
the Austrian Alps, upwards of 4000 feet thick, and there 
termed Rheetic(Rheetia) but in England reduced to a thickness 
of one hundred, and sometimes not more than thirty-five 
feet. The shells are for the most part of small size 
and peculiar to this series; some of the species described 
by him are new, and others are common to the same zone 
on the continent. They are usually met with in the strata 
associated with the bone bed, and more rarely in connection 
with it, Whether these different bone beds are absolutely 
+ See my Paper in Journal of the Geological Society. 
t Fossil Insects, (Brodie.) 
§ See another Paper in Proceedings of Warwickshire Naturalists’ Field Club. 
