44 Reports & Proceedings — Geological Society of London. 



Huxley, he said that the British Museum collection contained 

 seventeen examples, all from the neighbourhood of Lyme Regis and 

 of Charmouth, in Dorset. Each specimen exhibits a number of 

 uncinated arras 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. bniffuierianus, from the Lower Lias near Charmouth) there are 

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

 from the Lower Lias of Charmouth) are represented only by 

 a confused mass of hooklets. Of the other fifteen examples, in one 

 there are a few solitary hooklets; in another the number of the 

 arms is very indistinct; in two the remains of only two arras are 

 preserved ; in one there are traces of three arms ; in two there are 

 indications of three, or possibly four, arms; in one there is 

 a confused mass of possibly four arms ; and in one there are the 

 remains of four, or possibly of five, arms. In each of the remaining 

 six specimens six arms can be more or less clearly made out, while 

 there is not a single example in which more than six uncinated arms 

 are displayed. 



Of the six examples that exhibit six uncinated arms four are 

 stated to be from the Lias of Lyme Regis ; one is from the Lias of 

 Charmouth; and one was obtained from the Lower Liassic shales 

 between Charmouth and Lyme Regis. From a consideration of these 

 specimens, the speaker concluded that the Cephalopod represented 

 by these uncinated arras is the animal known as the Belemnite, 

 and that the six uncinated arms were arranged in three pairs of 

 unequal length, of which the longest pair was lateral, the medium- 

 sized pair probably dorsal, and the shortest pair probably ventral. 

 He considered the presence of tentacular arms to be doubtful. 

 These observations were in accord with those of Huxley, who, in his 

 Memoir already cited, stated that he had "not been able to make out 

 more than six or seven arms in any specimen, nor has any exhibited 

 traces of elongated tentacula, though the shortness of the arms 

 which have been preserved would have led one to suspect their 

 existence ". 



Mr. Crick regarded certain markings sometimes to be seen on the 

 guard as indicating that during the life of the animal the guard 

 was almost, if not entirely, covered by the mantle, in which case it 

 was highly improbable that the guard was pushed into the soft mud 

 of the sea-bottom in order to act as an anchor. 



He considered the animal to have been a free swiramei', swimming 

 forward ordinarily, but when desirable, capable also of sudden and 

 rapid propulsion backwards. 



V. — Liverpool Geological Society. 

 1. The first meeting of the fifty-eighth session of this Society was 

 held on October 10 last, Mr. J. H. Milton, F.G.S., F.L.S., President, 

 occupying the chair. The report on the work of the past session 



