680 MR. W. H. HARDAKER ON A FOSSIL-BEARING HORIZON [DeC. I912, 



(2) Summary and Conclusion. 



(a) Plant ae. — Thus, so far as our present information respecting 

 the range of these Hamstead-Quarry Series species of plants enables 

 us to judge, the three species are common to the Upper Carboni- 

 ferous and to the acknowledged Permian of other areas, either in 

 Britain or abroad. It might, however, be here pointed out that, 

 while Walchia piniformis and W. imhricata are rarities both in 

 England and on the Continent in the Upper Carboniferous flora 

 (in which the majority of the flora consists of ferns and fern -like 

 plants), and there always preponderate in number of specimens over 

 Walchia, in the Continental Lower Permian, on the other hand, 

 these special types and other conifers form the majority of the 

 flora, and individual specimens of Walchia are very abundant, while 

 ferns and their allies are comparatively rare. Now, at Hamstead 

 (although numerous specimens referable to Walchia have been 

 discovered) no indication of fern or fern-like plants has been found. 

 The plants found at Hamstead show, therefore, that the containing 

 rocks have a closer affinity to the Continental Lower Permian than 

 to the Continental Upper Carboniferous. 



{h) An im alia. — The number of recognixable so-called species or 

 main types of animals represented by footprints in the Hamstead- 

 Quarry Group amounts to six, to which must be added five varieties 

 or sub-types. 



Two only of these, namely. Hi [Ichnium spJicerodactylum) and 

 H5 (/. gamjDSodactylum), have apparently hitherto been found in 

 British deposits of acknowledged Permian age. Hi and H5 occur 

 doubtfully in the Lower Permian strata of Penrith or Dumfries. 

 None of the Hamstead forms have been met with in the Carboni- 

 ferous rocks of Britain or the Continent ; but forms somewhat 

 similar to Hi and H5 have been recorded from the Middle Coal 

 Measures of America. 



All the amphibian forms of the Hamstead-Quarry Series (in all 

 eleven species and subspecies) have been quoted from the Lower 

 Permian (Eothliegende) of Germany. Eight forms (Hi, Hia, H^, 

 H2, H2«, H3, H5, Hsa) are common to the Hamstead-Quarry 

 Series and the Middle Eothliegende of Thuringia, and seven (Hi, 

 Hirt, Hi 6, H3, H4, H5, He ?) to the Hamstead-Quarry Series and 

 the Upper Eothliegende of the same region. The Eothliegende 

 strata of Silesia, Moravia, and Bohemia have also afforded eight of 

 these eleven common forms : namely, Hi, Hi^, H2, H2a, H26, H3, H5, 

 and B.5a- 



As the Hamstead-Quarry forms of amphibian footprints include 

 ten, or possibly eleven (out of the total of seventeen) types and sub- 

 types of footprints hitherto discovered in the whole Eothliegende 

 of Germany, it would appear beyond question that the amphibian 

 fauna of the Hamstead-Quarry Series must be paralleled with that 

 of the German Eothliegende. 



