l86 PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 



mainly, — some of them exclusively — devoted to Geology, 

 although the Cotteswold Club embraces in its aims several 

 other branches of human knowledge. Charles Lamb once 

 tried to excuse himself, when charged by his chief at the 

 India House, with being late in the mornings, by the plea 

 that he went home early in the afternoons : and on the 

 same principle it might be urged as a counterbalance to 

 the too-exclusive attention paid to the one science by the 

 best men in the Club, that many of us who made up the 

 rank and file knew almost nothing about it. 



We were one beautiful summer day wending our way up 

 Haresfield Hill, when John Niblett pointed out the manner 

 in which the British Camp had been partly utilized by the 

 Romans, who built their square encampment in one end 

 of it. Reaching the Quarry at the top of the hill, one 

 of the Geologists pecked out some specimens from the 

 rhynconella cynocephalus band that occurs in the section, 

 and called John Niblett's attention to the position and 

 thickness of the layer : handing him a type of the fossil. 

 Niblett assented to the doctor in an absent dreamy 

 fashion : took the shell between his finger and thumb, and 

 drawing me a yard or two aside, said " Cynocephalus, you 

 know, is from the Greek Kuon — a dog, and Kephale — 

 a head : because the shell is so like the head of a dog. 

 You see, there are his ears." Then after a absent look — 

 changing the subject to another which the mention of 

 dogs had probably suggested, he added in a lower tone — 



" There are a great many rabbits just below there, and some of the idle fellows of the neighbour- 

 hood come here poaching. The policeman that takes the round in the early morning overtook one 

 of them in this Quarry -old John Smith : old Jackey they called him. Jackey had a shooting 

 jacket on, with the sides bulged out in a most suspicious way : and the policeman stopped him to 

 ask what he'd got in his pockets. ' What I got in my pockets aint nothin to do with you' says 

 Jackey. The policeman wouldn't take that for an answer, and he says ' You just turn them pockets 

 out.' When the pockets were turned out, there were a whole heap of rabbits — so the policeman 

 walks old Jackey off .... " 



" Mr Niblett — do you hear what Dr Wright is saving?" 

 asks the President. 



