of the Inferior Oolite. 147 
Schlotheim and D’Orbigny, which is sometimes confounded with 
it. A. primordialis is an Upper Lias species. Two forms of 
these Cotteswold Ammonites appear hitherto to have been un- 
described ; these will shortly appear, under the names of J. 
Moorei and A. Leckenbyi* ; the former is allied to Aalensis, the 
latter to hircinus. 
The statement that these Ammonites all cease with the high- 
est bed of the stage, needs some little qualification: a single 
specimen of A. striatulus and A. variabilis has occasionally been 
detected in the lowest of the hard brown beds which overlie the 
Cephalopod-bed at Frocester Hill; Belemnites and Rhynchonella 
cynocephala are more frequent. Whether, however, these Tes- 
tacea may have been washed into the newer bed, or may for 
awhile have lingered there as living denizens, is of little moment, 
as it is certain that the occurrence is of a local nature, and ex- 
tends only to the lowest bed of the Inferior Oolite. 
In assigning to the Sands the provisional rank of a distinct 
zoological stage, my conclusions are founded upon a review of 
its fossils compared with those of the Upper Lias “ Epsilon” on 
the one hand, and of the Inferior Oolite on the other, to each of 
which they offer certain approximations, in some instances 
amounting to absolute identity, in others to the more distant 
affinities of varieties; after deducting these, a considerable num- 
ber still remain, which appear to be proper to the stage. This 
view is to some extent in accordance with that of Quenstedt, 
who, in his ‘Jura,’ has separated the Jurensis marls from his 
Lias “‘ Epsilon,” or Upper Lias shale, into a distinct subdivision 
or stage of the Lias, under the name of Lias “ Zeta.’ It may be 
preferable for the present to allow it to remain as an independent 
stage until more extended observations shall have been made,— 
more especially until the Testacea of the Lias “Epsilon” shall 
have been more fully figured and described. In this respect 
it may rank as of the same stratigraphical value as the Cornbrash 
or the Kelloway Rock, a theoretical arrangement which will 
leave the problem to be determined by future researches, viz. to 
which of the two great formations bordering it, its fossils offer 
as a whole the nearest approximation. Considerable as the list 
of these has now become, it is evident that much still remains 
to be done; other localities require to have their fossils better 
collected and examined. How insufficient is our list from Dor- 
setshire ; how few species have been distinctly assigned to the 
stage in Yorkshire; how short a time has elapsed since the 
fossils of the lower zone have been collected in the Cotteswolds ; 
how meagre is the list of M. Eugene Deslongchamps from Cal- 
* The Cotteswold Hills: Handbook to their Geology and Paleontology. 
