Reports and Proceedings. 21 



2. " On the Madreporaria of the Infra-lias of South Wales." By 

 P. Martin Duncan, M.B. Lend., Sec. Gr.S. 



Eeferring first to Mr. Tawney's paper on the Sutton Stone, and 

 his own note on the Corals, appended thereto, as having been the 

 first-fruits of the recent researches on the Infra-lias in South Wales, 

 Dr. Duncan stated that in preparing this communication he had been 

 largely indebted to Mr. Charles Moore for the specimens which he 

 had examined, as well as for a considerable amount of information 

 embodied in the descriptions of the deposits. He then described 

 the strata of Brocastle and Ewenny, giving lists of their fossils, 

 and especially of the new species of Madreporaria described in this 

 paper, and illustrated by lithographs prepared for the Paleeonto- 

 graphical Society ; he then stated his views of their geological 

 position, their relations to, and differences from, the zone of Am- 

 monites Buchlandi and the strata in France and Luxemburg, which 

 have the same homotaxis, and gave a general view of the distri- 

 bution of the Madreporaria from the Keviper to the zone of Am- 

 monites Buchlandi. The chief conclusions were : — (1) that the 

 fossiliferous beds of Sutton, Southemdown, Brocastle, and Ewenny 

 are important members of the series which intervenes between the 

 Trias and the beds containing Ammonites Buchlandi, Gryphcsa incurva, 

 Lima gigantea, etc., and which have been named the Infra-lias ; (2) 

 that the Mollusca and certain well-known species of Madreporaria, 

 which are grouped together at Brocastle, have similar relations to 

 each other in the Calcaire de Valogne, in the zone of Ammonites 

 Moreanus of the Cote d'Or, and in the Gres de Luxemburg ; and 

 (3) that the above-mentioned beds in Wales, constituting a coralli- 

 ferous horizon, are the equivalents of the Upper beds of the French 

 and Luxemburgian Infra-lias. 



3. " On some points in the structure of the Xipliosura, having 

 reference to their relationship with the Eurypterida." By Henry 

 Woodward, Esq., F.G.S., F.Z.S., of the British Museum. 



The author pointed out that Professor M'Coy's tribe, Pcecilopoda, 

 was intended to include the Limidi, with Eurypterus, Pterygotus, and 

 Beliiiurus. Professor Huxley had already shown (in 1859) that this 

 classification was founded upon an erroneous interpretation of the 

 fossils, then (1849) only known in England by extremely frag- 

 mentary remains. 



The object of this communication was to demonstrate, that, 

 although Professor M'Coy's classification was based on conjecture, 

 rather than upon a minute acquaintance with the anatomy of these 

 extinct foiTQs, yet the subsequent researches of Professors Agassiz, 

 and Hall, in America, Professor Nieszkowski, in Eussia, and the 

 independent investigations of Mr. J. W. Salter and the author, in 

 this country, have shown, that a close relationship actually does 

 exist between the Xipliosura and the Eurypterida. 



The author then gave a detailed comparison of the structure of 

 these two divisions, which he proposed to call Sub-orders of Dr. 

 Dana's order Merostomata. He also pointed out that the Xipliosura 

 were divisible into three genera : — 1st, Belinurus, Baily, having five 



