Conus in the Lias of Normandy. 293 
France or in this country. The fact, indeed, has remained 
almost unknown, a brief notice of the fossils, unaccompanied 
by figures or a specific description, having alone appeared in 
a report of a meeting held in 1837, by the Linnean Society of 
Normandy. 
Although fossil shells belonging to Lamarck’s family of the 
Enroulés are sufficiently abundant in the tertiary strata, a 
very few examples have yet been recorded of the occurrence 
of any of these shells in any of the more ancient fossilife- 
rous rocks. The Hnrvulés of Lamarck comprise the genera 
Ovula, Cyprea, Terebellum, Ancillaria, Oliva, and Conus. Of 
these, the only examples known to me in secondary forma- 
tions, are a species of Cyprea, which I have mentioned and 
figured in the Geol. Trans. (2nd Series, vol. v. p. 243.) as oc- 
curring in the upper chalk of Faxoe in Denmark, and a Cone 
called C. tuberculatus, of which a single specimen was found 
by M. Dujardin in the chalk near Tours, of which he has 
' given a figure in les Mém. de la Soc. Géol. de France, tom. ii. 
deuxiéme partie, 1837. Plate 17. p. 232. 
I was greatly surprised, therefore, during my late visit to 
Caen (June, 1840) to see in the cabinets both of Prof. Des- 
longchamps and M. Tesson, several specimens of Cones which 
they told me had been discovered in the lias of La Fontaine- 
Etoupe-four, about six miles south of Caen. We find it stated 
in the report before alluded to, that M. Deslongchamps had 
found in the Commune of Bretteville sur Laize, three species 
of Cones in the lias, and that M. Tesson had afterwards found 
a fourth and more perfect individual of the same genus in the 
quarries of Fontaine-Etoupe-four not far from the locality be- 
fore-mentioned. In both these places the lias is described as 
resting on the quartzose sandstone of the transition formation 
(terrain intermédiaire). Two of these specimens only re- 
tained the shell itself, the others were casts. (See Figures. 
In order to satisfy myself of the correctness of the alleged 
geological position of these Cones, I visited in June, 1840, 
Fontaine-Etoupe-four in company with M. Deslongchamps, 
and ascertained to my full satisfaction that the rock from 
which the Cones had been extracted was full of Ammonites, 
Pleurotomaria, and other fossils, which must belong either to 
some member of the inferior oolite or upper lias. 
The fundamental rock consists of highly inclined vertical, 
and in some places curved, beds of reddish and white quart- 
zite, alternating with greenish talcose schists. Upon these an- 
cient rocks the brown fossiliferous limestone rests unconform- 
ably and in horizontal stratification. At many points are seen 
at the contact deep rents traversing the inferior quartzose 
