81 



On Gryph(sa Incurva and its Varieties. 



BY JOHN JONES. 



Few fossil shells are better known to Geologists, or to the popu- 

 lace of the districts in which they occur, than those which form 

 the subject of the present paper. The abundance in which 

 they are found in the Vale of Gloucester, in the classical sections 

 of the Lias, as at Purton and Fretheme, and in the superficial 

 soils as exposed by agricultural operations, renders them famUiar 

 to all, and accounts for their having received popular names. 

 The generic denomination, in scientific language, is derived from the 

 Greek word FPT^ or FPTHOS, " incurved or inflected," which well 

 describes the most striking characteristic of the commonest form— the 

 Gryphaea incurva. The popular names, " DevU's toe-nails" and 

 ♦' Cuckoo shells," are of more obscure origin. The ordinary specimens 

 of G. incurva, when viewed in profile with the concave valve almost 

 concealed from view, readily enough suggest the idea of talons, and in 

 the absence of any other monster sufficiently formidable to bear them, 

 known to the unlearned, are naturally considered to be " membra 

 disjecta" of the father of evil himself. The larger and more strongly 

 incurved specimens, may in like manner, suggest to some imaginations 

 the idea of horns, which appendages are supposed to be worn 

 by members of a secret society, to whom the note of the bird of 

 Spring is held to be particularly obnoxious, accounting therefore for 

 the connection of its name with the shell in question. They were 

 formerly calcined to make a lime water, which was considered a 

 sovereign remedy for a malady to which cattle are subject, called 

 the red-water. It would have been difficult to select a group of shells 

 which could better exemplify the utility of such a series of illustrated 

 monographs, as that to which the Club proposes to devote its resources, 

 as will be shown in the present paper, which will treat only of the 

 Gryphites of the Lias. 



