Miscellaneous. 205 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. 



A Monograph of the Silurian Fossils of the Girvan District in Ayr- 

 shire. By H. A. Nicholson, M.D. &c., and R. Etheridge, Jun., 

 Esq., F.G.S., &c. Fasciculus III. 8vo. London and Edinburgh : 

 Blackwood & Son, 1880. 

 This jjart completes the first volume of a first-rate palaeontological 

 work, the result of enthusiastic labour on the part of the authors, 

 who are fully conversant with their subject. Supplemental matter 

 (derived mainly from new collections made in Ayrshire, and partly 

 from further knowledge acquired in the progress of the work) forms 

 a large part of this Fasciculus, namely the chapters on some of the 

 fossil Protozoa, Coelenterata (tabulate corals), and Crustacea, from 

 Girvan. Some Aunclidau remains, and several so-called " Worm- 

 tracks," or trails and marks due to Crustaceans, Mollusks, and other 

 animals besides Worms (as the authors now recognize them), are 

 treated of ; and various Echinoderms (Asteroidea and Crinoidea) are 

 carefully described. These fossils are well illustrated in nine plates. 

 The printing, paper^ and plates are good. A careful index for the 

 volume is appended ; and altogether the authors may weU be proud 

 of their elegant and useful volume. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



On the Existence of a Reptile of the Ophidian Type in the Beds with 



Ostrea columba, of the Charente. By M. H. E. Sauvage. 

 The Ophidian type, the maximum development of which is at the 

 present epoch, seemed to make its first appearance at the base of 

 the Tertiary, in the genera Falceophis and Paleryx, discovered by 

 Owen in the London Clay. Possil snakes, however, were known 

 only by a few rare species found at Sheppey, in the phosphorites of 

 Quercy, and in the Miocene of Sausan. Gervais had figured (but 

 without giving it a name) the vertebra of an Ophidian derived from 

 the sandstones which, at the island of Aix, are above the Creta- 

 ceous lignitiferous clays. M. Tremaux de Eochebrune, bas since 

 collected vertebrae which enable us to assert the presence of the 

 serpent type as long ago as the Cenomanian epoch, in the Caren- 

 tonian stage, the sands with Ostrea columba of the forest of Bas- 

 seau in the Charente. 



These vertebrae, which belong to the middle region of the body, 

 are 0-013 metre high and 0*014 metre long, and indicate an 

 animal of about 3 metres. The length is equal to the breadth at 

 the level of the costal apophysis ; so that the vertebra is strong and 

 thickset. The articular condyle is supported by a very short neck ; 

 the articular cavity is circular, such as we find in the Boedonians. 

 The neural canal is narrow, as in the Crotalians ; and its section is 

 triangular. The anterior face is broad, the diapophysis and zygo- 

 sphene projecting but little. As in the Typhlopians, the parapo- 

 physis is reduced to a feeble tubercle, which joins with the diapo- 

 physis by a prominent line ; the zygapophysis is inchned downwards, 

 backwards, and inwards. The Boas and Pythons have the tubercle 

 for the insertion of the rib placed very near the anterior margin of 

 Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. 8er. 5. Vol. vii. 15 



