[ 219 ] 



VIII. On the British Palaeogene Bryozoa. By J. W. Gregory, B.Sc, F.Z.S., 



British Museum [Nat. Hist.). 



Eeeeived May 17th, 1892, read June 14tli, 1892. 



[Plates XXIX.-XXXII.] 



CoiriENTS. 



Page 



I. Introduction 219 



II. Terminology 220 



III. Classification 221 



IV. Systematic Synopsis 22.5 



IV. a. The Systematic Position of the 



Adeonellida; 241 



Page 



V. Miscellaneous Hecords 262 



VI. Stratigraphical Distribution . . 263 



VII. Affinities of the Fauna . . 264 



VIII. Bibliography 266 



IX. Explanation of the Plates 276 



I. Introduction. 



P EOBABLY few groups of British Neozoic fossils have been so much neglected as the 

 British Lower Cainozoic Bryozoa. While those of the Crag were carefully monographed 

 by Busk in 1850 and those of the Cretaceous, Jurassic, and Palaeozoic rocks have been 

 described in numerous memoirs, but little has been done on the Palseogene fauna. In 

 Morris's ' Catalogue of British Fossils ' published in 1843 only one species is mentioned, 

 and it was not till 1850 that some were described and figured by Lonsdale in Dixon's 

 ' Geology of Sussex' ; he described four species, of which only one was regarded as new. 

 In 1866 the next contribution was made by Busk [No. 7] in a paper entitled 

 " Description of three Species of Polyzoa from the London Clay of Highgate, in the 

 collection of N. T. Wetherell, Esq., F.G.S." This paper, short though it be, is the best 

 piece of work that has been done on the British Eocene Bryozoa. Since then Mr. G. R. 

 Vine [a, p. 673] has published a list of the recorded species and has subsequently 

 described two collections, both of which are now in the British Museum. With these 

 additions the list numbered twenty-one, but of these only four are here retained, as the 

 remainder are either based on identifications that I have been unable to verify or on 

 indeterminable fragments. 



The neglect of this group has no doubt been mainly due to the comparative rarity of 

 specimens : collectors who have devoted a good deal of time to our Lower Tertiaries 

 have only met with a few fragments and have not felt much interest in them. . Even in 

 the principal Museums the British Palaeogene Bryozoa are very sparsely represented, 

 with the single exception of the British Museum, which contains all the material from 

 many large collections ; the collection there now includes all existing types and 

 fio'ured specimens, with the exception of one specimen figured in this communication. 

 The principal part of the Bryozoa collection in the British Museum consists of the 



VOL. xiiL — PART VI. No. 1. — June, 1893. 2 K 



