36 Reviem — Fn'fscJ/'s Fauna of the Gas-coal. 



of a gigantic shark armed in both jaws with several series of teeth 

 like tTiose now described under the name of Uelicopr'wn is, indeed, 

 sufficiently startling ; but it seems to us more likely to be 

 realized than the hypothesis which Dr. Karpinsky's most interesting 

 researches have led him to propose. A. S. W. 



III. — Fauna der Gaskohle tjnd der Kalksteine dek Perm- 

 F0R5IATI0N BoHEMS, vou Dr. Ant. Fritsch, F.E.G.S. Bd. i\% 

 Heft 1, Myriopoda, Pars 1 ; and Bd. iv, Heft 2, Myriopoda^ 

 Pars 2, Arachnoidea. 4to ; pp. 1-32 and 33-64, pis. cxxxiii-cxliv 

 and cxlv-cliii. (Prague, 1899.) 



THE progress of this important work, dealing with the fauna of 

 the Gas-coal of Bohemia, has been noticed from time to time in 

 the Geological Magazine. In the fourth volume the author com- 

 mences the description of the Articulata of the Permian formation. 

 There is little to say concerning the Hexapoda, or Insects proper ;. 

 three species of TJiryganea are recorded as evidenced by the cases cif 

 the larvae of the Caddis-fly, and some fragments of the wings of the 

 adult insect. Of Orthoptera (Cockroaches) he describes J^tohlattina 

 Bohemica, Arthroblattina Zubnensis, and two others, chiefly from 

 wings, and three insects of uncertain determination. 



Pages 13 to 65 of the two parts are occupied with descriptions and 

 figures of the wonderful series of Myriopoda, of which no fewer than 

 thirty-four species are enumerated, some being smooth unspined 

 forms like the modern Julus, others armed with rows of powerful 

 curved and branched spines (each compound or double division of 

 the body bearing two pairs of legs), well-developed tracheae, a head 

 furnished with compound and simple eyes (ocelli), and one pair of 

 antennas. 



Such forms of centipedes have long been known from the 

 Carboniferous Series, both in England and America. The earliest 

 record of the discovery of terrestrial Arthropods from the Coal- 

 measures of England was made by the late Eev. P. B. Brodie in 

 1845, in his "History of Fossil Insects." In this work Professor 

 Westwood states that he regarded the organism (which we now 

 know to be part of a gigantic spined Myriopod) as the remains "of 

 some large Caterpillar furnished with rows of tubercles." The late 

 J. W. Salter in 1863 described a similar fossil from the Clay- 

 ironstone of the Staffordshire Coalfield under the name o^ Eiirypterna 

 {Arthropleura) ferox, and referred to it, as a most curious crustacean 

 fragment, part of the spined abdomen of a Eurypterus. Messrs, 

 Meek & Worthen, in their Geological Survey of Illinois (1868), 

 were the first who correctly recognized these fossils from America 

 as the remains of gigantic spined Myriopods. Similar forms have 

 since been described by Scudder in America and Dr. Woodward in- 

 England (see Geological Magazine, 1887). 



Numerous illustrations are given in the text to show the character 

 and arrangement of the rows of branched spines upon the sides of 

 the dorsal surface of the segments, the tracha^al openings, the jointed 



