56 REPORT—1852. 
microscopic objects; le succeeded in setting two: on their return to me, upon ex- 
amination under the microscope with a power of 3th, I found one of them extensively 
ornamented with elegantly ramifying figures, not much unlike coralloid bodies. After 
perusing Mr. Morris’s paper, Ann. Nat. Hist., Aug. 1851, and comparing the figures 
on my fish-scale with those seen in many of the Belemnites from the chalk at Nor- 
wich, I feel persuaded that the figures on both are due to the operations of the same 
tribe of parasites, and I consider that the dissimilarity in their form is sufficient to 
warrant my concluding that they are the workings of different species. 
Unlike the borings in the Belemnite, which run in straight lines, and frequently 
inosculate, those in the fish-scale proceed with a graceful curve to their extremities, 
terminating in a symmetrically-formed dilatation or cell, and they do not frequently 
inosculate. 
I have with some care endeavoured to measure the calibre of the borings, and I 
believe that it ranges from a 3000th to a 4000th of an inch in diameter. Conceive, 
then, the infinitesimal tenuity of the organism that formed them. I propose calling 
this parasite Talpina Squame. 

On the Lowest Fossiliferous Beds of North Wales. 
By J.W. Sauter, F.G.S., of the Geological Survey of Great Britain. 
The great interest always attaching to the search for the oldest types of animal 
life, has lately been revived by the zealous researches of M. Barrande of Prague, 
who has discovered and announced in various communications*, a succession of 
faunas in the Silurian region of that country. The earliest fauna is marked by the 
presence of peculiar genera of Trilobites, not found in any of the succeeding forma- 
tions. Such are in Bohemia Paradowides, Conocephalus, Sao; and several other 
genera of the Olenoid type, together with species of Agnostus. 
A rare Orthis, a Pteropod, and two Cystidee, are all the other forms this naturalist 
has discovered, after many years of patient labour, in his region C. 
The publication by Angelin in the ‘ Palzontologia Suecica,’ of a considerable number 
of Trilobites, confirms these views, and shows the same genera, Paradowides, Cono- 
cephalus, and for the most part 4gnostus, to be confined to the lowest members 4. B. 
of the Swedish system, and with them are the long-known species of Olenus and the 
Graptolites of the lower alum slates. 
In 1851, M. de Barrande paid a visit to this country for the express purpose of 
comparing the Bohemian fossils with many unpublished forms of this country. He 
recognised with great pleasure that the ‘ Lingula flag” (discovered by Prof. Sedg- 
wick to form the lowest fossiliferous zone in North Wales +) was a most satisfactory 
equivalent of this lowest stratum C. 
Lingula Flags.—As all the fossils from these strata collected by the Geological 
Survey have now been examined, it is thought it will prove interesting to put them 
upon record, previously to their fuller publication in the Memoirs of the Survey. 
The beds in question are largely developed in Merionethshire and Caernarvonshire, 
appearing sometimes in the form of fine thin-bedded sandstones, and at others of beds 
of black slates interstratified with coarse sandstone and conglomerate. In Me- 
rionethshire they appear at the base of a great igneous series, described by Messrs: 
Jukes and Selwyn as 15,000 feet thick, and the fossil beds alternate with these volcanic 
strata throughout their whole extent, at least the Zingula Davisii, which is the cha- 
racteristic fossil, is found from the base nearly to the top. 
In the lower part, or the true Lingula flags, the Lingula Davisii is associated with 
Olenus micrurus, a new crustacean Hymenocaris hereafter mentioned, and fu- 
coids: higher up no fossils have been found except the Lingula Davisii; and at the 
top, but still distinctly in the igneous series, Lingula still occurs, probably of the same 
species, but associated with an dsaphus, a Calymene, and some Grapiolites. 
For the lower part of this series, which T feel sure M. de Barrande would alone con- 
* The latest, and since this paper was read, is that published in Leonhard and Bronn’s 
Neues Jahrb. 1852, p. 257, Transl. in Quart. Geol. Journ., vol. viii. pt. 2. p. 31. ; 
> T Quart. Geol. Journ., vol. iii. p. 139 e¢ seq. : 

