204 OUR COMMON BRITISH FOSSILS. 



covered. The White Chalk of Norfolk has, I believe, 

 proved richest in these stalked cirripedial forms. 

 The peculiar angular and striated plates are by no 

 means uncommon in the Chalk-pits about Norwich, 

 and they are found fossilized (generally on the out- 

 side) on the flint nodules as well. 



Real sessile Cirripedes occur first in the Lias. 

 Verruca stromia is common (in detached plates) in the 

 Coralline and Red Crags. Species of sessile barnacles 

 still in existence as, for instance, Balanus porcatus, 

 etc. cover the upper surfaces of all the large stones 

 at the bottom of the Red Crag strata near Ipswich 

 and Felixstowe ; and so firmly do they cling that I 

 have frequently seen the pauper-broken flints (obtained 

 thence) in fragments, with their share of thickly 

 coated fossil barnacle-shells still adhering to them 

 thanks to the strong precipitation of iron-oxide which 

 cemented them more firmly than ever they intended 

 to their original settling-place more than a quarter 

 of a million of years ago ! 



What we call true crustaceans are hardly repre- 

 sented by that early " shrimp," the Hymenocaris. All 

 zoologists know that the true Crustacea are now 

 separated into the long-bodied kinds (Macrura), such 

 as the lobsters and crayfish ; and the short-bodied 

 kinds (Brachyura), as represented by our modern 

 edible crab. Somewhere half-way between these we 

 may place the Anomura, of which the soft-bellied, 

 hard-clawed, and evidently anomalous " hermit-crabs " 

 are examples. 



