MONOGRAPH 
OF THE 
BRITISH JURASSIC GASTEROPODA. 
GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 
Since the publication of the Supprement to the Great-Ooxtrte Mouusca in 1863 
‘no attempt has been made to deal with any portion of the Jurassic Gasteropoda in 
the works of the Palzontographical Society. Itis true that the “ British [ Jurassic] 
Belemnites”’ formed the subject of a Monograph by the late Professor Phillips, 
whilst the Lias Ammonites have had ample justice done to them quite recently by 
the late Dr. Wright, and the Jurassic (as well as Cretaceous) T'rigoniw by the late 
Dr. Lycett. But the Mesozoic Gasteropoda have been singularly neglected, so that, 
in point of fact, there has been no Monograph dealing either with them or with the 
Pelecypoda “as a whole” since Lycett’s last work, published four and twenty 
years ; and to this long lapse of time we must add nine years since the date of 
the latest issues of the Great-Ootits Motiusca. One might almost imagine 
that this admirable Monograph, in conjunction with the no less valuable Supple- 
ment, had exhausted the subject of the Mollusca of the Lower Oolites, although 
professing to deal with the upper or Bathonian’ division only. 
Hach age has its own speciality and its own way of looking at things. Thus 
the middle of the nineteenth century witnessed the appearance of the standard 
works of Deslongchamps, Goldfuss, D’Orbigny, Morris and Lycett, and many 
others. Those were the days when the discovery and naming of fossil Mollusca 
formed an exceedingly popular branch of science. But for some time past our 
biologists and paleontologists have been engaged in the more difficult task of 
working out the structure and affinities of the lower and obscurer classes. Thus, 
for nearly a quarter of a century, whilst the Sponges, Corals, Foraminifera, and 
1 It will be remembered that a few of the Gasteropoda figured in this work, such as “ Pterocera”’ 
Bentley?, and the shells in Plate XV (from Yorkshire), belong to the Bajocian or Inferior Oolite divi- 
sion of the Lower Oolites. 
1 
