THE VICTOUI.VN NATURALIST. 91 



Let this rough, popular description of the fossil crab do for the 

 present, in which hard words have been eschewed as much as pos- 

 sible, and I will leave the more scientific description of it for more 

 competent hands. I may mention that I obtained my first speci- 

 mens of it about two years ago, in company with Mr. Curlewis, in 

 some smooth calcareous nodules that occur in great abundance in 

 the raiocene rocks on the south side of Corio Bay, a few miles 

 beyond Point Henry, and that I have since found them in the 

 rocks on the other side of the bay at North Geelong, but though 

 similar nodules are also be found at Cheltenham, and I have often 

 broken them open there, I have not as yet succeeded in finding any 

 specimens there, nor indeed anywhere else than in Corio Bay. As, 

 therefore, the fossils are so thoroughly " Geelongese," I would 

 suggest " Corioensis " as the specific name for them, although that 

 has already done duty in the same way for several other fossils. 



Hugh Miller, in his well-known book called the " Story of My 

 Education," when speaking of his geological researches amongst 

 the lias rocks of Cromarty Bay, tells us how his heart leaped up 

 with joy as he laid open a nodule with the blow of his hammer, and 

 saw that it contained the glittering scales and spines of his first 

 discovered ganoid fish — and although crabs are not so high in the 

 scale of animal life as fish, and though we were not such celebrated 

 individuals as Hugh Miller, I think my friend Mr. C. will bear me 

 out in saying that the sudden disclosure of the relics of our first fossil 

 crab in the rocks of Corio Bay gave us a joy that was not one whit 

 less than his, and when we took the fragments home, and putting 

 them together, puzzled them out as belonging to the genus " Gono- 

 plax," I think I may add that we learnt to enter somewhat into the 

 experience of another saying, as I think it is of Hugh Miller's^ 

 that he who reconstructs enjoys a bliss second only to that of 

 creating. 



I have just to draw your attention to the fact that some of the 

 specimens exhibited have been crushed, showing, as I take it, that 

 the animals themselves met their death in a violent manner, perhaps 

 by a sudden volcanic ejection of mud or other matter from below 

 the sea. 



(N.B. — Since reading this paper I have been told that the same 

 crab has been found fossil at Cheltenham, but I have never seen it 

 myself.) 



EXCHANGES. 



Mr. E. Cornwall, 55 Chapel-street, South Yarra, will be glad to 

 exchange Queensland Lepidoptera for Australian birds' eggs. 



P. R. offers back numbers of " Science Gossip" for Australian 

 plants (Phanerogams or Cryptogams) not occurring in Victoria. 



