200 Geological Society. 



abroad who, being int crest tnl in blood-suckinp insects and their 

 connection with tropical diseases, will find in this handy and 

 beautiful book as perfect illustrations as they could wish for of 

 tyi'icnl examples of all the families of Dipt era possessed of such 

 jurnicious habits. P. H. G. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



GKOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



November 21 st, 190G.— Sir Archibald Geikio. D.C.L., Sc.D., Sec.R.S., 

 President, in the Chair. 



The following communication was read : — 



' On the Skull and greater portion of the Skeleton of Gonio- 

 phohs crassidcns from the Wealden Shales of Atherfield (Isle of 

 Wight).' By Reginald Walter Hooley, F.G.S. 



In the late autumn of 1004, at a place locally called 'Tie Pits,' 

 near Atlierfield Point, a huge mass of the cliff, comprising many 

 thousand tons of the Wealden Shales, subsided, pushing its foot 

 across the beach until below low-water line. As the sea washed 

 away the base, the mass continued to sink, and fresh horizons were 

 denuded. In 1905 a series of heavy ' ground-seas ' cast up blocks 

 of limestone and ironstone, containing crocodile-bones, which were 

 discovered on the sand between high- and low-water marks. The 

 skull came ashore in six pieces. Fragments of lioncs, and scutes 

 •were constantly picked up; and the Author is indebted to 

 Prof. T. McK. Hughes for the block which had been picked up 

 and sent to the Sedgwick Museum at Cambridge. The specimens 

 were derived from a horizon 80 to 90 feet below the top of the 

 "Wealden Shales. A history of the British Goniopholida? from the 

 foundation of the genus by Owen in 1841 is given, and it is noted 

 that the frame in the Manlell Collection, now in the 15ritish ^Museum, 

 not only contains the two type-blocks, but a smaller one with the 

 impression of the orbital region of the skull, a fragment of the 

 frontal bone, and the impression and fragments of a moiety of 

 the right ramus. The skull and bones of the new specimen are 

 next described, and a detailed comjiarison is instituted between 

 G. simus and G. crassidens, with the result that the specimen 

 is referred to the latter species, differing in several important 

 particulars from the former. Comparisons arc also made with 

 other species of GoniojJwIis, with JS'annosuchus and Oiveniasuchus. 

 In conclusion, the Author notes that, while in certain features the 

 species comes nearer to the Teleosaurs than G. simvs, it is farther 

 removed than the latter from them in the position of the posterior 

 narca. 



