28 Mr. Edward Lovett on the 



preservation, and Dr. Woodward has persuaded me to deposit this 

 specimen also at the Natural History Museum, South Kensington. 

 Dr. Hinde, a gentleman living at Mitcham, has made this 

 part of geological research his special study, and produced a 

 magnificent work upon the subject, and he has forwarded a 

 letter, which I propose with your permission to include in our 

 ' Transactions,' and the shell itself in our cabinet. 



Copy of Dr. G. J. Hinde's Letter to Dr. Carpenter. 



Feb. 9, 1885. 



I thought perhaps it might prove interesting to you and the 

 members of your Chib to see some of the sponge spicules £i"om the 

 chalk, which are occasionally found in the interior of flints, and I 

 forward you a slide containing an assortment of them, which I have 

 collected and mounted. They are of various species of silicious 

 sponges ; then- surfaces you will find are pecuharly eroded. These 

 spicules are larger than those which belong to existing species of 

 Cliona, and if the sponges which made the borings in the chalk fossils 

 possessed spicules similar to those of the recent forms, they would be 

 quite destroyed by the erosive action which has indented these larger 

 spicules, and therefore it is not surprising that the minute pin-shaped 

 spicules of the forms common to recent Clionas should have not yet 

 been found fossil. In the absence of the spicules there is room for 

 doubt whether the borings might not have been produced by other 

 organisms than sponges, but in the case of Cliona cretacea the pro- 

 babilities are in favour of their being veritable sponge burrows. 



Very truly yours, 



George J. Hinde. 



50. — The Evolution of the Fishing-hook from the Flint 

 Hook of Prehistoric Man to the Salmon Hook of 

 THE PRESENT Day. [Abstract.] 



By Edward Lovett. 



(Read March 11th, 1885.) 



Although the subject of my paper is hardly within the scope 

 of natural history, it is nevertheless one of very great interest 

 as connected with Anthropology ; and, as my principal observa- 

 tions will refer more especially to the "Stone Age" and the 

 relation that recent works of man bear to it, my subject is one 

 intimately connected with the early races of mankind, and con- 

 sequently with natural history in its highest form. 



Some years ago I had the pleasure to examine the undisturbed 

 floor of a cave in the island of Jersey, which cave had been the 

 residence, and undoubtedly the workshop, too, of prehistoric 

 flint-workers. It would entail too much time to give a proper 



