234 Bibliographical Notices. 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 
A Monograph of the Silurian Fossils of the Girvan Disti let in Ayr¬ 
shire, with special Reference to those contained in the “ Gray 
Collection .” By H. Alleyne Nicholson, M.D., D.Sc., &c., and 
Robert Etheridge, Jun., E.G.S. Fasciculus I. 8vo. Pp. 135 
and 9 plates. Blackwood : Edinburgh and London, 1878. 
The Silurian strata in the neighbourhood of Girvan, Ayrshire, in 
the south-west of Scotland, are much complicated by faulting and 
rolls, but so very fossiliferous iu places that not only has their 
successional order been determined, but their organic remains are 
found to be of especial interest to geologists in working out the 
history of that portion of the Palaeozoic deposits. Hence from 
1849 and 1850, when Salter and M‘Coy noticed some Silurian 
foss ils from Girvan, and especially when Murchison had studied the 
district soon after, this locality and its fossil fauna has received 
more and more attention, until the Royal Society granted £75 to¬ 
wards the description of the fossils, and Robert Gray, Esq., gene¬ 
rously gave further aid. 
Mrs. R. Gray’s collection has been the chief source of materials ; 
Mr. Lapworth has aided; and the authors have collected also for 
themselves, and carefully studied the collections in the national 
museums in London and Edinburgh. 
This Fasciculus comprises descriptions and figures of the Protozoa, 
Corals, and part of the Trilobites. A Bibliography in prefixed, also 
a list of localities whence the fossils have been procured. 
A so-called Chondrites is first described, but not figured. Such 
Algoid fossils may be tracks or galleries of Annelids or Crustaceans. 
The avowedly obscure genus Nididites is placed, with Ischadites 
(page 19), in the class llhizopoda, at page 10, and considered to be 
very near to Receptaculites ; but Mr. Billings’s views of the Rhizo- 
podal character of the latter are not referred to, and no other reasons 
for the collocation are given. 
A Sctccammina , like the Carboniferous and Recent species, has 
been recognized by H. B. Brady in the Girvan Limestone, as well 
as another, still more obscure, curved, tubular, allied organism, 
which the authors name Girvanella. 
Of the Actinozoa, Lyopora, n. gen., Tetraclium, Favosites, Fistu- 
lipora, Chcetetes, Prasopora , Halysites, Thecostegites, Pinacopora, 
Heliolites, Stylarcea, Calostylis , Streptelasma , and Lindstrcemia are 
the genera which give comparatively few species, of not very strong 
characters, but sufficient to indicate that the strata at Craighead 
and Balcletchie are of Lower-Silurian age; those of Mulloch Hill, 
Penkill, and Shalloch Mill, Upper Silurian. 
Trilobites (still referred to “ Entomostraca,” at page 98) are not 
rare in the Girvan beds. Species belonging to Phacops , Cheirurus, 
Encrinurus, Cxybele , Dindymene , Staurocephalus , Acidaspis , and 
Lichas are here described and figured. 
The nomenclature of genera and species in this Fasciculus is 
