W. H. HucUeston — Fossil Shells from South Australia. 339 



Insects near Swanage, Dorset, seems not likely to remain long as an 

 isolated group without a parallel. Prof. Marsh's explorations in 

 the Kocky Mountains have brought to light a similar assemblage of 

 small Jurassic Mammals, which conform in all their characters to 

 those of the English Purbecks, some being even generically identical. 

 I shall await with interest the discovery of l^europterous insects 

 from these American Jurassic deposits. 



It only remains in conclusion to give to our insect-fragment a 

 name ; and as the generic name ^schna has been already applied to 

 a Liassic form {^scJma Brodiei, Buckm.^), I will venture to designate 

 Mr. Jack's discoveiy as uS^schna Flindersiensis, as recognizing its locality 

 on the Flinders River and one of Australia's earliest explorers and 

 heroes. 



II. — Notes on some Mollusca from South Australia, obtained 



NEAR Mount Hamilton and the Peak Station. 



By Wilfrid H. Hudleston, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S. 



(PLATE XI.) 



THE molluscan fossils figured on Plate XI. were transmitted to 

 the Editor - by Mr. Hy. Y. Lyell Brown, F.G.S., Government 

 Geologist for South Australia. They are from two localities in that 

 Colony, one near Mount Hamilton, 20 miles S.W. of Lake Eyre, 

 but the greater part came from 40 S.W. of the Peak.^ There is 

 nothing in the collection which could be quoted as absolutely 

 decisive of their age, though we may fairly regard them as Mesozoic. 

 The conditions of fossilization remind us of the Jurassic fossils of 

 this country, and the general facies is not dissimilar. But these 

 resemblances should not be taken for more than they are worth, the 

 more so since we fail to trace absolute specific identity. 



Mr. E. Etheridge, junior, is of opinion that the fossils are 

 Cretaceous, and this is by far the most probable conjecture, seeing 

 that fossiliferous beds, known to be of Cretaceous age, are some- 

 what extensively developed on the Australian continent. 



See Mr. Daintree's paper on the Geology of Queensland, Quart. 

 Journ. Geol. Soc. 1872, vol. xxviii. pp. 271-359, and plates ix.- 

 xsvii. See also Mr. Hy. Y. Lyell Brown's Reports. 



Natica, species. PI. XL Fig. 4. 



Internal cast, in highly calcareous stone, of an umbilicated Naticoid 

 shell. The whorls were probably inclined to be tabulate, and the 

 size of the body-whorl would be about fths of the total height of 

 the shell. A trigonal bivalve not unlike Soioerhya is adherent. 



It is interesting to observe in connection with this ca'st that a 

 specimen of Natica (with the shell preserved), named Natica lineata, 



^ See Brodie's History of Fossil Insects in Secondary Eocks, 1845, pi. 8, fig. 1, 

 and pi. 10, fig. 4 ; also Buckman's (Murchison's) Geology of Cheltenham (new 

 edition), 1845, tab. 8, figs. 1 and %. 



2 The Editor is greatly indebted to Mr. Hudleston for undertaking, on his behalf, 



the difficult task of describing these Australian Molluscan remains. — Edit. Geol. Mag. 



^ The explorers, by whom they were collected, did not keep the specimens from 



these localities distinct, and there is no evidence to enableone to separate the Mount 



Hamilton specimens from those collected from the Peak district. 



