TRILOBITES AND OTHER FOSSIL CRUSTACEA, 175 



the feeble notice which the curious gave to them in 

 pre-geological days when all fossils were called 

 ^'petrifactions," and all were equally regarded as 

 evidence of the universality of the Noachian Deluge. 

 Perhaps nowhere are Trilobites more abundantly 

 visible than in the Wenlock limestones, near Dudley. 

 The latter have been upheaved to a very high angle, 

 and the surfaces of the hard limestone slabs are so 

 thickly bestrewn with fossils, that it is impossible 

 to place the tip of one's finger without its coming 

 into contact with some of them. These limestones 

 are constantly clean, from weathering. They are 

 veritably museums of Upper Silurian fossils, and 

 although hard to extract with the hammer, the student 

 may while away many a summer hour in gloating 

 over these lovely treasures of the ancient deep. 

 Trilobites are there in uncountable thousands, but 

 nearly always in disjointed " heads " and " tails." 

 We cannot wonder, therefore, that they should have 

 attracted the attention of those fond of natural 

 phenomena, although in the days long anterior to 

 scientific explanations of them. As " Dudley 

 Locusts," one genus of Trilobites {Calymene) was 

 long known ; even the fact of their standing out 

 in relief from the limestone was noticed as very 

 remarkable, for nothing was known in those days of 

 sub-aerial denudation or weathering of rocks. They 

 were named "Trilobites" as long ago as 1771, by 

 Walch, in his "Natural History of Petrifactions," 



