1859.] BUCOIAN FOSSIL REPTILIAN EGGS. 109 



shape. A specimen freed from the matrix (fig. 2) has the following 



proportions : — 



inches. 



Length If 



Breadth 1-jL- 



Circumference of its long axis 4^- 



Circumference of its short axis 3-^ 



The separated example, as well as some of the imbedded eggs, is 

 more or less filled with transparent crystals of carbonate of lime. 

 The shells of all (if they were originally of calcareous matter) ap- 

 pear to have been very thin, as some of the eggs are distorted by 

 compression in such a manner as seems to bear evidence of a largo 

 amount of flexibility : there are no decided traces of fracture, though 

 some of the individuals are greatly flexured. 



From their clustered grouping we may, I think, conclude that they 

 form but a part of a larger collection which were deposited in the 

 calcareous sand of the shallow waters of the Oolitic sea ; and, from 

 the circumstances of the abundant presence of the following shells 

 in blocks of the surrounding Oolite, notwithstanding the occurrence 

 of bits of wood, as these always bear traces of having been drifted, 

 the conditions were entirely those of a marine character : — 



Cardium Buekmanni, and another. Pecten lamellosus, and others. 



Lima cardiiformis. Ostrea jurassica. 



Pecten lens. Terebratida maxillata. 



In commenting upon the nature of the creature by which these 

 eggs were deposited, we shall find that the subject is so new, and 

 these specimens indeed are so unique, that as yet, from the paucity of 

 evidence, remarks upon this subject can be little more than conjec- 

 tural. We have, however, organic remains now before us, of the 

 same age, and from the same district, which point to the existence 

 of Chelonian and Saurian Reptiles in these Oolitic beds. 



Dermal scutes of Turtles have been obtained from the Bradford 

 Clay of the Tetbury Road Station, which, if present at the Hare- 

 bushes, would occupy a position upon bed No. '-i of our section. Rut 

 we may discard the notion of the eggs having belonged to a Turtle, 

 since, though the ends of these examples are bluntly rounded, vet the 

 proportions will show that they are tar removed from the spherical 

 shape which characterizes the eggs of this class of reptiles. There is, 

 then, more probability of these fossil eggs having belonged to cue of 

 the Saurian creatures, the remains of which are no! uncommon 

 throughoul the Oolites; but, upon the supposition that the Ichthyo- 

 saurus and Plesiosaurtu were true oviparous reptiles, I should con- 

 clude that the eggs in question were toe small to have been deposited 

 by any of the Enaliosaurian species the remains of which I have as 

 yet detected in the < Ireal ( tolite. 



It has been suggested that the eggs may have been those of a 

 Tele,. simian Reptile; audit may in' bo, since remains of Teleosaurus 

 have been found in the Stonesfield slate, at the bottom of the Bath 

 Oolite, and in the Bradford Clay at the top, and since, in all proba- 

 bility, some of the fragmentary reptilian bones so often occurring in 



