﻿26 JSfoiices of Memoirs — On Palceocypris Edwardsii. 



imderwood ; and the Irish ' Film-fern ' (Hymenophyllum umlaterah) 

 flourished in many favoured spots until quite recently, when the 

 modern Eccles Hotel has retained tourists too long in the district, 

 who have ruthlessly carried off, as reminiscences of a pleasant holiday, 

 this which was one of the most attractive features to the botanist." 



After mentioning that in the two lower fresh-water series there 

 are no animal remains but what have been blown in, among them 

 insect wings and the earliest known English feather, the lecturer 

 went on to speak of the physical conditions under which he supposes 

 the beds were formed. He said that he regarded a river flowing 

 from west to east as having deposited, all these beds in a valley 

 of from seven to ten miles, which it had made, and showed a 

 picture of the restoration of what he supposed the view was like. 

 The foreground of the picture was made up of plants from Mrs. J. 

 E. Gardner's conservatory, being the nearest known living repre- 

 sentatives of the fossil plants. 



A block opened before the audience proved fortunately a good 

 one and crowded with leaves. Some experiments were made during 

 the lecture showing that there is in the decomposed granite enough 

 iron to account for the colours of the clay. 



II. — Note sur un NorvEAu genre d'Entromostrace fossile prove- 



NANT DU TERRAIN CARBONIFERE DES ENVIRONS DE SaINT-EtIENNE 



{PalcBocypris JEdwardsii), par M. Charles Brongniart. 



"ANY traces of the former existence of Entomostraca are to be 

 found in the different geological formations, their carapaces 

 being often admirably preserved, and exhibiting all their external 

 markings, whilst every vestige of the animals themselves has been 

 entirely removed. Much uncertainty, therefore, exists concerning 

 the exact zoological affinities of these fossils, and Palteontologists 

 have been obliged to base their classifications on the form and ex- 

 ternal ornamentation of the carapace. M. Ch. Brongniart has been 

 enabled, however, by a rare good chance, to examine and describe 

 the remains of some Ostracods from the Coal-measures of Saint- 

 Etienne, in which not only the carapace, but also the more delicate 

 appendages, such as the antennae with their hairs, the feet, etc., 

 have been preserved. These Entomostraca, which were found im- 

 bedded in the silex filling the interior of a Cardiocarpus, are closely 

 allied to the recent genus Cypris, but at the same time, as they differ 

 in several essential characteristics from that genus, the author pro- 

 poses to designate them Palceocypris JEdioardsii., after Prof. Milne- 

 Edwards, and gives the following details of their structure : — 



I'alaocypris Ediv€irdsn is only half a millimetre (-ro-in. nearly) 

 in length ; the body, as in Cypris, is enclosed in a bivalve, oval test, 

 laterally compressed. The valves are narrower in front than behind, 

 and their surface is covered with granulations, whilst numerous very 

 short and fine hairs are seen springing from the dorsal margin. 

 The body, properly so called, does not occupy the whole of the 

 interior of the carapace ; in front it approaches the dorsal edge, and 

 at the bottom it almost touches the (ventral) margin of the valves. 



