534 Illustrated Zoological Notices. 



James De C. Sowerby, through whose kindness I have had 

 an opportunity of examining it. 



Two points are involved in the history of this fossil, and 

 the other to which reference has been made, which are well 

 worthy of attention (connected with their zoological charac- 

 ters, and the conditions under which they are found). The 

 position of the siphunculus in the chambered cephalopodous 

 shells appears to be of less value as a generic character than 

 has been hitherto imagined ; and, secondly, it seems that 

 Goniatites, or at any rate something very like them occur in 

 the London clay, a bed in which we certainly should not have 

 anticipated their existence. 



Although the true Nautili are rather plentifully met with 

 when any considerable excavations are made in the neighbour- 

 hood of the metropolis, the species of this genus are by no 

 means abundant throughout the whole extent of the clay de- 

 posit overlying the chalk. They are rather numerous in the 

 Isle of Sheppey, and I have occasionally seen very fine spe- 

 cimens in the cliffs of Essex and Suffolk ; but I have never 

 detected a fragment of a Nautilus in that rich deposit of terti- 

 ary fossils on the Hampshire coast, nor am I aware that it ever 

 occurs there. As the genus is unknown in either the coralline 

 or red crag as a tertiary fossil in this country, it is charac- 

 teristic of the London clay. Mr. Bowerbank has one speci- 

 men of N. ziczac from Sheppey, and Mr. Sowerby 's specimen 

 was from Highgate. The one figured here (by far the most 

 perfect specimen of the three) was obtained from a labourer at 

 the Primrose Hill tunnel. 



In the tertiary beds at Dax, and one or two other localities 

 on the Continent, a large species very closely allied to, if not 

 identical with, N. ziczac is not unfrequently met with. I regret 

 that I have not had an opportunity of learning whether M. 

 Deshayes enters into any details respecting this species, in 

 his Description des Coquilles Fossiles des Environs de Paris. 

 The only copy of this valuable work to which I have acces. 

 is in the library of the Royal Society, and the late parts, 

 containing the Cephalopods, have not been received. 



Having a number of interesting subjects worthy of notice, 

 as illustrating points of interest in connexion with recent and 

 fossil zoology, I propose, from time to time, introducing them 

 in a series of papers to the readers of the Magazine of Na- 

 tural History. 



London, Sept. 21. 1837. 



