272 Rev. P. B. Brodie on the Lias at Fretheme near Newnham, 



111. DuMETiA ALBOGULARis, Blytli, J. A. S. xvi. 453. 



Confined to the vicinity of Colombo and not uncommon ; it is 

 generally found in small flocks about the cinnamon and other 

 low bushes, creeping about in search of insects. 



112. Chrysomma Sinense, Lath. 



This bird, or a pale variety, is not unfrequent near Caltura 

 and in the Pasdoom Corle. 1 also observed a few specimens in 

 the Anarajahpoora Wanny. 



It hunts in small flocks about low bushes. 



[To be continued.] 



XXVII. — Remarks on the Lias at Fretherne near Newnham, and 

 Purton near Sharpness ; with an Account of some new Forami- 

 nifera discovered there ; and on certain Pleistocene Deposits in 

 the Vale of Gloucester. By the Rev. P. B. Brodie, M.A., 

 F.G.S.* 



I AM afraid that the few observations I have to ofier on the 

 strata and fossils at Fretherne Clifi" will present little novelty or 

 importance ; still there are a few points of interest to which I 

 wish to draw the attention of our Members, and which seem to 

 deserve a short notice. The Lias here rises in the shape of a 

 low cliff" at the end of a round hill between Saul and Arlingham. 

 You are aware that the Severn in its course below Longney 

 makes a great curve, so that the low lands in this district are 

 bounded on three sides by the river, but the generally flat aspect 

 of the scenery is relieved by the picturesque and bold outlines of 

 the Oolitic hills on the east and south-east, and the Palaeozoic 

 system of May Hill and the Forest of Dean on the west and north- 

 west. There are several cliff's on the banks of the Severn where 

 the Lias is exposed between Gloucester and Aust Passage. West- 

 bury is, I believe, the first of these below Gloucester, which I 

 have already described (Fossil Insects, p. 58), but most of them 

 exhibit the lowest beds of the Lias resting on the Red Marl, and 

 contain a peculiar and on the whole distinct assemblage of or- 

 ganic remains. To this Fretherne and Purton form an excep- 

 tion, as the small sections exposed there consist of the lower Lias 

 overlying the " Ostrea bed," equivalent to certain other portions 

 of the series in the Vale of Gloucester, as at Hatherly, the Leigh, 

 Pitt's Elm, Hardwicke, &c. The upper part of the former cliff 

 is composed of several layers of grayish white and blue lirae- 



* Read to the Cotteswold Naturalists' Club (Meeting at Sharpness), 

 May 3, 1853. 



