54 Notes and Comments. 



wards — the directions of the present prevailing winds. Alt 

 the pebbles are of Glacial origin, but the facetting may be 

 relatively quite recent. The upper part of the sands where 

 they occur may be the result of redistribution by wind before 

 a soil-cap began to form. 



i.l i) THE BELEMNITE. 



At a recent meeting of the London Geological Society, Mr. 

 G. C. Crick, A.R.S.M., F.G.S., gave an account of some recent 

 researches on the belemnite animal. He stated that it was 

 his intention to confine himself to the restoration of a typical 

 belemnite animal and its shell, as shown particularly by 

 examples in the British-Museum collection. He first demon- 

 strated, by means of a rough model, the construction of the 

 belemnite shell, including the guard or rostrum, the phrag- 

 mocone with its ventr ally-situated siphuncle, and its thin 

 envelope the conotheca, with its forward prolongation and 

 expansion (on the dorsal side) known as the pro-ostracum. He 

 then noted the abrupt termination of the chambered cone on 

 the lower part of the pro-ostracum. of which the dorsal surface 

 may have been partly or almost completely covered by a thin 

 forward extension of the guard. To illustrate what was' 

 known of the complete body of the animal as found associated 

 with the guard, he showed photographic slides of two of the 

 examples figured by Huxley in his ' Memoir on the Structure 

 of the Belemnitidae,' published in 1864. Each of these exhib- 

 ited the guard associated with portions of the pro-ostracum, 

 the ink-bag, and the hooklets of the arms. The form of the 

 liooklets with their thickened bases was discussed, this feature 

 in a great measure justifying the attribution to the belemnite 

 of certain cephalopod remains (found practically at about the 

 same geological horizon) that included uncinated arms associ- 

 ated, ,with an ink-bag, and frequently also with nacreous 

 portions' of (presumably) the pro-ostracum. 



>"•.'. LIAS SPECIMENS. 



Of the remains of uncinated armed cephalopods from the 

 Lias, each exhibiting the same form of hooklets as those figured 

 by Huxley, he said that the British-Museum collection con- 

 tained seventeen examples, all from the neighbourhood of 

 Lyme Regis and of Charmouth, in Dorset. Each specimen 

 exhibits a number of uncinated arms associated usually with 

 an ink-bag, sometimes also with nacreous matter, and in two 

 instances also with the guard or rostrum. These two examples 

 were those to which he had already referred as having been 

 figured by Huxley, and unfortunately the arms are not well 

 preserved in either of these specimens ; in one (B. bruguierianus, 

 from the Lower Lias near Charmouth) there are only a few 

 scattered hooklets, while the arms of the other (B. elongatus, 



Natural st. 



