510 AN ARACHNID FROM THE COAL 



An Arachnid from the Coal Measures of the Tyne Valley 



By E. Leonard Gill, M.Sc. 



A fossil arthropod of great interest has recently (April, 1909) 

 come into my possession. It is in a clay-ironstone nodule 

 from the brickworks near Crawcrook, on the south side of the 

 Tyne above Ryton. Such nodules occur there abundantly in 

 certain Coal Measure shales at about the horizon of the 

 Low Main coal seam. Many of them contain well preserved 

 fossils, the commonest being fronds of Neuropteris gigantea. 

 Sphenopteris and other fern (or fern-like) fronds are found 

 more rarely ; and sometimes the split nodules show a mis- 

 cellaneous aggregation of vegetable matter in small fragments. 

 Animal remains seem to be quite scarce. Apart from this 

 arachnid I have seen only a Nucula shell and some fish- 

 scales, the latter much resembling scales oi Strepsodiis sauroides 

 from Coal Measure shales. The workmen told me of a "hairy 

 worm " found in one of the nodules, which had however been 

 lost. This may have been an annelid or a myriapod, but it is 

 perhaps at least as likely that it was a narrow Lepidostrobus 

 cone. I have seen one large and finely preserved Lepido- 

 strobus in a nodule from Crawcrook. 



It is worth noticing that ironstone nodules from Coal 

 Measure beds in many parts of the world have yielded a very 

 considerable number of previously unknown arthropods. But 

 it seems also to be the case very generally, as in the present 

 instance, that these remains, even where they do occur, are 

 found extremely sparingly. Almost more often than not only 

 one or two isolated examples of any particular form have been 

 found. 



Except in a few localities, such as Commentry in France 

 and Rakonitz in Bohemia, arthropods of any kind* are com- 

 paratively speaking of very scarce occurrence in the Coal 

 Measures. Insects are probably found more often than 

 arthropods of any of the other groups, and of insect remains 



* This statement is not intended to apply to minnte aquatic forms such as 

 Ostracods, 



