President's Address. 91 



Great interest is attached to the subject of Colour Mai;k- 

 INGS retained by Paheozoic shells. Although but few have 

 been found in a sufficiently good state of preservation to ex- 

 hibit this, several instances arc on record, especially amongst 

 the Carboniferous Mollusca. 



Mr T. Davidson lias very truly observed, that " two great 

 helps which recent species afford are almost entirely pre- 

 cluded from the Pala'ontologist ; that is to say, the power of 

 being able to anatomically examine the animal, and the 

 absence of that coloration, which is often of so much assist- 

 ance in the discrimination of recent shells; and when we 

 reflect how vivid, beautiful, and varied must have been the 

 tints which once adorned the now black and dingy fossil, we 

 are delighted, when, by some fortunate accident, some re- 

 mains of that colour is faintly preserved upon a shell, which 

 has for almost countless ages been concealed from the siglit 

 of man."* 



Traces of the original colour have been noticed on several 

 Brachiopods. Thus the shell of Terehrahda hastata, the 

 largest of the British Carboniferous Terebratulidse, was 

 marked with stripes, probably of a red colour.! In the pos- 

 session of these red stripes T. hastata resembles the recent 

 forms Terebratida ritbella and T. pulcJiella. The markings 

 are also similar to those in the Upper Greensand varieties of 

 T. biplicata from Cambridge.;]: The best example of T. 

 hastata, with stripes of colour, yet found is from Longnor, in 

 Derbyshire, and has been figured by Mr Davidson ; § but 

 examples of these markings, less well preserved, have been 

 found in Scotland by Mr J. Young. 



The smaller species of Liiigida common in Scotch Carboni- 

 ferous strata, L. mytiloides (Sby.), Mr Davidson believed to be 

 of a bright green colour,! I but we have lately described ex- 

 amples of this shell from the Bo'ness Coalfield, found by Mr 

 James Bennie, in which the shell bore distinct traces of 



* Geologist, 1860, iii., p. 238. 



t Davidson, ihicL, 1859, ii., p. 473. 



X Davidson, INIon. Carb. Bracliiopoda, p. 13. 



§Mon., t. 1, f. 6. 



Jl Geologist, 1860, iii., p. 231. 



