234 Prof. BucKLAND 071 Coprolites. 



length of ten inches, offers an analogy which may explain the spiral form of 

 these lulo-eido-coprolites, and abo of the Sauro-coprolites from Lyme Regis*. 



I have iust learnt from Mr. Millar, that Colonel Houlton of Farley Castle 

 possesses specimens from tiie mountain of St. Peter near Maestricht, which 

 are identical with these lulo-eido-coprolites of the English chalk. The Colonel 

 has favoured n)e with the loan of these specimens')". 



The specimen represented in Mr. Mantell's Plate IX. fig. 3. as an unknown 

 body from the chalk at Lewes, has also been ascertained by Dr. Prout to be of a 

 faical natnret ; its external form and surface favour this opinion, but as it has 

 no internal spiral coils, it niust have been dei ived from some other animal than 

 those which produced the lulo-eido-coprolites. Mr. Mantell has just sent me a 

 smaller specimen from the chalk near Lewes§,in which an uncontorted substance 

 of a similar form and colour, and giving a similar analysis, lies within the body 

 of a fossil fish {Amia Leicesiensis) ,au(\ in immediate contact with its air-bladder ||. 

 Both these specimens from Lewes are prol)ab]y varieties of Ichthyocoprus, and 

 the smaller one may safely be called A/nia-coprus. These uncontorted speci- 

 mens prevail in the lower chalk, where alone the Amia is found, and seldom 

 occur in the chalk marl where the spiral lulo-eido coprolites are so common. 



VIL Coprolites hi Tcrtlarj/ Strata. 

 Mr. Burtin in his Oryctographie de Bruxclles%. figures a specimen as a 

 "fruit, ou noyau de fruit inconnu," which seems evidently to be a Coprolite. 

 Mr. Mantell** has referred to it as resembling the luli of the chalk; and I 

 have copied it in Plate XXXL fig. 11«. Also in a collection 1 recently 

 purchased of fossil fruits from the London clay of Sheppy, there is a Copro- 

 lite ft which in form resembles some of those from the lias on the Severn |];. 



* An examination of the form and composition of the fasces of living fishes, particularly of the 

 sharlc and ray and sturgeon tribes, throws much light on the present inquiry. I have recently 

 dissected some rays and dog-fishes, and found in them a short spiral intestine coiled round inter- 

 nally like a screw-pump or winding staircase ; injecting these intestines with Roman cement, 1 

 have made artificial Coprolites that in form are exactly similar to many of our fossil specimens. 

 Plato XXXI. figs. 19. 20. 21. 22. The vascular structure also of the tortuons intestines of certain 

 species of dog-fishes resembles the minute impressions and ramifications on the surface of the lulo- 

 eido-coprolites. Plate XXXI. figs. 20. 21. 



t Plate XXXI. figs. 9. 10. 11. J Plate XXXI. fig. 13. 



§ Plate XXXI. fig. 12. II Mantell's Sussex, p. 239. and Plate XXXVIII. 



% Plate V. F. G. ** Mantell's Sussex, p. 158. tt Plate XXXI. fig. 14. 



+ + In the crag at Southwold in Suffolk, Mr. Lyell has found a remarkable body, apparently 

 a Coprolite, of the size and form of an oblong duck's egg, and almost entirely composed of phos- 

 phate of lime and oxyd of iron: it is traversed by cracks like a septarium, and the cracks are 

 filled with oxyd of iron ; it however exhibits no internal structure, nor organic remains, nor any 

 other circumstantial evidence to prove inconlrovertibly that it is of fajcal origin. 



