146 Crick : Snakesiones. 



(No. 438g5a). It is not so large as the example figured in ' The 

 Naturalist,' being only about 51 mm. {i.e., about 2 inches) in 

 diameter, and compared with that specimen the end of the nose 

 is relatively thicker and slightly upturned. 



The practice of supplying heads to the Whitby Ammonites 

 was also mentioned in ' The Geologist ' for 1858 (p. iii) in a 

 note, by S. J. Mackie, on an exceedingly well-preserved example 

 of Ammonites communis {=^Dactylioceras commune), from the 

 Lias of Whitby, that belonged to Dr. J. S. Bowerbank's collec- 

 tion. The writer states : — ' Of all the numerous fossils which, 

 occur so abundantly in the Lias, none are more common, and 

 few more beautiful, than the abundant form we have figured, 

 the Ammonites communis, so long and so well-known as the 

 " Snake Stones," into which St. Hilda, by her devotional 

 fervour, is reputed to have changed those obnoxious reptiles 

 in this district. . . . 



' The snakes, however, appearing to have lost their heads, 

 and to have been decapitated before or in the process of petrifi- 

 cation, these fossils became a source of great tribulation to 

 those who thus attempted to account for their origin. The 

 " curiosity " dealers knew better how to treat the subject, and 

 carved heads out of the matrix, demanding high prices for these 

 so-styled " perfect " specimens.' 



Again in 1885, in his work entitled ' Our Common Fossils 

 and where to find them,' J. E. Taylor in referring to the common 

 Whitby Ammonites, states (p. 313) that ' They are found in 

 blue nodules, which, when broken open, reveal the coiled-up 

 ringed shell, wonderfully resembling a snake in such species as 

 Ammonites communis, and still more wonderfully resembling 

 one when they put a ' head ' on, with eyes in — as they some- 

 times do.' 



The British Museum collection contains another example 

 (No. 37927) oi Dactylioceras commune (Fig. 2), also from the 

 Tapper Lias of Whitby, having a diameter of about 30 mm. (i.e., 

 rather more than i| inches), that has been provided with a 

 head, the nose being much more pointed than in the specimen 

 figured by Sowerby, and much more closely resembling that of 

 the example figured in ' The Naturalist.' This fossil was added 

 to the National Collection in 1859. 



It would therefore seem that the practice of carving heads 

 upon the more common of the Whitby Ammonites has cer- 

 tainly been in vogue for nearly one hundred years. 



Naturalist, 



