226 Prof. BucKLAND on Coprolites. 



than tliis *. It appears moreover, probable, that the remains of cuttle-fish occur 

 in these fgecal balls at Lyme Regis. I had requested Dr. Prout to ascertain 

 the cause of the bright jet black colour that pervades some of them : 'his reply 

 after examination was, that their analysis is very similar to that of the fossil ink 

 from the lias which I had also submitted to him, and to ask me if it was pos- 

 sible that Ichthyosauri could have eaten sepiae : Mr. Gray also, whilst examin- 

 ing my specimens of the fossil pens and fossil ink-bags from the lias, asked if 

 I ever found the semi-osseous or horny rings of the suckers of Cephalopodes : 

 I replied that many of the faecal balls are interspersed with small black circles, 

 which seem to correspond in shape and substance with the horny rings he was 

 incjuiring forf, and to confirm the conjecture of Dr. Prout that sepise formed 

 part of the food of the Saurians. Though containing much animal matter 

 and but little lime, these rings, like the scales of fishes that have travelled with 

 them through the intestines of the reptiles, seem to have resisted the destruc- 

 tion which awaited most of the bones that were subnutted to this digestive 

 process |. 



Nearly half of all the Coprolites in the lias at Lyme Regis contain these 

 rings, which, if they are derived, as I imagine them to be, from the suckers of 

 the Loligo or other Cephalopodes, show that the Saurians fed largely on the 

 Cephalopodes of the ancient seas§. I think it, however, right to mention two 

 facts that seem unfavourable to ray opinion as to these rings. 1st. That none 

 of them are so large as the largest cup-rings of the modern Loligo. 2nd. That 

 the lias contains the remains of a small fish whose vertebrae are nearly of the 

 same size and shape as the rings in cjuestion : it is also possible that the rings 

 in Plate XXX. figs. 2 A. & 3 A. may be sections of a large tuberculated scale 

 or bone. 



* Crocodiles in the Ganges, whose jaws are not one half the size of the fossil jaws I allude to, 

 are often found to contain a human hody in their stomachs. I possess vertebrae of Ichthyosauri 

 nearly seven inches in diameter. 



t Plate XXX. figs. 1.2. & 3. 



+ It is a question that deserves attention, as connected with animal and mineral chemistry, 

 Why fossil scales are preserved more perfectly than the bones of the fishes to which they 

 belonged, though containing much less lime, and much more animal matter? The substance of 

 the rings in the suckers of the recent Loligo and other Cephalopodes, much resembles the semi- 

 transparent and horn-like substance of recent fish scales. In the case of our Coprolites, both 

 rings of Loligo and scales of fishes appear to have been indestructible ; and in the same lias with 

 them at Lyme Regis, the beaks, and horny pens and ink-bags of a fossil Loligo, and other Cepha- 

 lopodes, occur in high preservation : these will be described in the next Part of the Geol. Trans. 



§ A strong a priori probability that the Cephalopodes of the lias period would have been de- 

 voured abundantly by the Saurians, arises from the fact mentioned in Loudon's Mag. Nat. Hist. 



