13» OUR COMMON BRITISH FOSSILS. 



that the seam is called the " star-fish bed." The oldest 

 and chief forms are Protaster, Palceaster, Urastella, 

 Palceasterina, and Palceocoma, the latter being related 

 to our living "bird's-foot star-fish." At Leintwar- 

 dine, where the Lower Ludlow rocks crop up and 

 are quarried, we meet with both the kinds of fossil 

 star-fishes of which we have been speaking. Speaking 

 of Protaster Miltoni (one of the ancient "brittle- 

 stars "), Mr. Salter says it is " abundant, and of all 

 sizes," meaning, I suppose, in various stages of 

 growth. Few localities are better worth a geological 

 pilgrimage than this part of Shropshire. It is only 

 nine miles from Ludlow, where the celebrated " Bone- 

 bed " of the upper Silurian rocks may be advan- 

 tageously studied. The Lower Ludlow rocks at 

 Leintwardine are not much quarried, for they are 

 a kind of "mud-stone," of little commercial value. 

 Otherwise there is no doubt the number of fossil 

 star-fishes which would be exhumed would be im- 

 mense. Unfortunately, since Mr. Salter's time, the 

 quarry on Church Hill, where the fossil star-fishes 

 were once so abundantly found, has been either 

 worked out, or excavation has been discontinued. 

 In the larger quarry at Mocktree Hill, not far off, we 

 again come upon tracts of this Silurian star-fish bed. 

 Mr. Marston, of Ludlow, has a splendid series of these 

 fossils, among them Protaster Marstoni ; and in the 

 Ludlow Museum the visitor may see slabs on which 

 more than a score of fossil star-fish are crowded 



