(PEEPAEATORY NOTES.) 



JBi/ Professor J. BUCKMAN, F.G.S., RL.S., & 



cc. 



HE followiug paper is the result of the offer of a Prize 

 of Books to the amount of 2 guineas by the Dorset 

 Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club to the 

 Sherborne School, for the best description of the species of the 

 genus Astarte to be met with in the Inferior Oolite of Sherborne 

 and its neighbourhood. 



The terms were, that the species should be collected and 

 described by the author and the specimens in illustration be 

 produced before our Society. 



Accordingly at the at Sherborne on the 12th December, 1877, 

 the following paper was presented by my son, and somewhere 

 about 50 specimens were shown by way of illustration and 

 explanation of the text. 



From the paper and specimens we learn that the author 

 had succeeded in making out 8 species which had been previously 

 described, and also in naming as many as 9 species that he coidd 

 not find out had been noticed by Authors. To this list I have 

 added another species since the paper was sent in. 



These results may be considered as highly interesting when we 

 consider not only the smallness of the area under review but the 

 usual thinness of the bed from which most of them were 

 obtained. 



In fact the greater part of the collection was got from the rich 



