H. W. MoncUon—The Westleton Beds. 59 



The earliest known Limuloid Crustacean, named Neolimulus 

 falcatiis, figured and described by Dr. H. Woodward in 1868 (see 

 Geol. Mag., Vol. V, p. 1, PI. I, Figs. 1, la), is from the Upper 

 Silurian of Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire, Scotland. Mr. W. H. Baily 

 described Bellinurus Kiltorkensis, Baily (1869), from the Upper Old 

 Eed Sandstone, Kiltorcan, Ireland. The genus Bellinurus was 

 established by Mr. C. Konig, in 1820, for certain small king-crabs 

 from the Coal-measnres of Coalbrookdale, Shropshire, under the 

 specific name of B. hellulus. To this have been added B. arciiatus 

 and B. regince, Baily (1863), Coal-measures, Queen's County, Ireland ; 

 B. Koenigianus, H. Woodw. (1872), Coal-measures, Dudley ; B. Dance, 

 Meek & Worthen, Coal-measures, Illinois, U. S. America ; Frestwichia ^ 

 {Lhnulus) anthrax, Prestwich, sp. (1840), and P. rotundata, Prestwich, 

 sp.. Coal-measures, Coalbrookdale, Shropshire ; and P. Birtwelli, 

 H. Woodw. (1872), Coal-measures, Padiham, Lancashire. 



King-crabs have been described from the Muschelkalk,^ the 

 Jurassic, the Cretaceous rocks, the Tertiaries, and are now living 

 in the seas of Eastern North America and of Japan. Our present 

 Permo - Carboniferous example connects the Upper Coal - measures 

 "with the Secondai'y rocks, and completes the chain of life of this 

 remarkably persistent type of the Xiphosura from the Upper Silurian 

 to the present day. 



IV. — On a Section in the Westleton Beds at Ayot Brickfield. 

 By Horace W. Moncrton, F.L.S., F.&.S. 

 N May 14th, 1898, a party of the Geologists' Association visited 



Ayot under the direction of Messrs. John Hopkinson, F.G.S., 

 and A, E. Salter, B.Sc, F.G.S. An account of the excursion will 

 be found in the Proceedings of the Association, vol. xv, p. 308, and 

 I think the following additional note of one of the sections visited 

 will be of interest. 



The section was at the eastern side of the brickfield close to Ayot 

 station, and the general relation of the beds seen is shown in the 

 accompanying Figure. 



Prestwich, in his paper on the " Eelation of the Westleton Beds," 

 etc., published in 1890,^ remarks : " Notwithstanding the extreme 

 denudation which the high chalk plain extending from Hertfordshire 

 into Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire has undergone, 

 a few small outliers of Lower Tertiary strata still remain, rising 

 above the general level of the chalk plateau with its scanty Glacial 

 Drifts and its ' Red Clay with flints.' These little isolated hills are 

 frequently capped by a gravel- or shingle-bed, which I believe to be 

 of Westleton age." He then gives several localities, and amongst 

 them Ayot, 406 feet O.D. 



1 Originally described by Prestwich in bis "Geology of Coalbrookdale" as 

 ' Limulus ' anthrax. The genus Frestwichia was established by Woodward in 

 1867 : see Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. xxiii, p. 32. 



^ Limulus priscus, Miiuster, Muschelkalk-Dolomit, Laineck, near Bayreuth: 

 K. A. Zittel's " Haudbuch der Pala^ontologie," ii, p. 645 (1881). 



^ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. xlvi, p. 138. 



