300 F. R. Cowper Reed— 



termed the " Staddon Grits " is adopted in the Geological Survey 

 memoir (Explan. Sheet 350, 1903), the basal group of the Lower 

 Devonian, the " Dartmouth Slates ", being considered to be 

 unrepresented there. The boundary between the Meadfoot Beds 

 and Staddon Grits is not satisfactorily fixed, but the two principal 

 exposures which have yielded most of the fossils here described 

 are respectively near Kilmorie House, in Meadfoot Bay, and in the 

 New Cut, on the Lincombe Drive. The lithological characters of 

 the beds at these two localities as well as the contained faunas are 

 sufiiciently distinct. The red fossiliferous beds at Smugglers' Cove 

 differ somewhat in lithological characters from those of the New Cut, 

 and contain a different assemblage of fossils, so far as the scanty 

 fauna is known, but they are ascribed to the Staddon Grits in the 

 above-mentioned memoir of the Geological Survey. 



Undoubtedly there is much scope for further systematic collecting 

 of fossils from these beds, and though the specimens are as a rule 

 poorly preserved or fragmentary, yet they frequently admit of 

 specific identification when studied alongside of better material 

 from the Continent. 



The collections in the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge, have 

 supplied most of the specimens on which the following notes are 

 based, but the Lower Devonian fossils in the Torquay Museum, the 

 Jermyn Street Museum, and the British Museum have also been 

 examined, and my thanks are due to Mr. Harford Lowe, Dr. Kitchin, 

 and others for much assistance in my work. 



Previous Literature. 

 A large number of fossils were described or recorded by Phillips 

 in his Palceozoic Fossils of Cornwall and Devon (1841) from 

 " Meadsfoot " or " Meadsfoot Sands ", but only in some cases 

 (marked * in the following list) have the original specimens been 

 traced, and with regard to the remainder of the types some doubt 

 exists. The names following in brackets are those used in the present 

 article. 



* Pleurodictyum prohlematicutn Goldf. 



*Nucula ovata Sow. ( = Cleidophorus subovatus sp. nov.). 



*Avicula anisota Phill. ( = Pterinea anisota). 



*Orihis sordida Phill. ( = Chonetes plebeia Schnur). 



0. plicata Sow. 1840 (not 0. plicata Sow., Davidson, Mon. Brit. Foss. 

 Brach., iii, p. 245). 



0. qranulosa Phill. (genus doubtful). 



Spirifera costata Sow. {"! — S. subcuspidatus). 



Euomphalus serpens Phill. 

 *Be.Uerop}ion trilobatus Sow. (= Bucaniella sp.). 



Orthoceras tentaculare Phill. 

 *Homalonotus sp. (? = H. armatus Burm. ?). 



Etheridge, sen.,inl867 ' recorded the following Lower Devonian 

 species from South Devon, but whether all came from the Torquay 

 district is uncertain, as is also the accuracy of the identifications. 



J Etheridge, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. xxiii, 1867, pp. 579, 619-25, 636, 



