ESTHERIA FORBESII. 109 



Binfield noticed them, and I believe that Mr. Beckles has found them at another horizon, 

 still lower by about forty feet. (See page 106.) As the equivalents of these lower shaly 

 beds containing Estherice appear to me to occur along the Bexhill and Couden Cliffs 

 (at a lower geological horizon than the Estherian shales of Bulverhithe, by about fifty 

 feet), search might well be made there for these interesting little fossils. These are 

 the shales which have afforded the Reptilian footprints to Mr. Beckles' researches.^ 



The specimens of Estherian shale (No. 5) under notice were collected by Prof. J. 

 Morris, E.G.S., and myself at Bulverhithe ^ from the first set of strata met with in the first 

 cliff westward of Bopeep (St. Leonard's). They consist of a soft, thinly laminated, bluish, 

 fine-grained, micaceous shale, weathering grey and brownish grey. The valves are very 

 numerous, but not in a good state of preservation, only very thin, brown films remaining, 

 but these sometimes show both form and ornament very satisfactorily, as seen in PI. Ill, 

 figs. 18—21. 



EsTHERIA ELLIPTICA, Var. SUBQUADRATA. PI. Ill, figS. 18 29. 



By this title, based on the trivial name used independently by Sowerby and 

 Dunker, I designate our English form of E. elliptica, as at present known to me, 

 and as described above (p. 103) ; because, although agreeing with the Hanoverian type 

 of the species in general form, habit, and ornamentation, yet our specimens from 

 Sussex uniformily differ in having smaller valves and a coarser bar-ornament. They may 

 have possessed these varietal differences as inhabitants of deltaic or lacustrine waters 

 different from, though coeval with, those of the German area. 



The English Wealden Esiheria (like that of Linksfield, p. 77) has not unfrequently 

 passed for Cyclase and occasionally in collections it has been labelled " Cyclas mem- 

 branacea. Sow." ; and this last-named shell has been quoted as an Esth'eria? There 

 is no doubt, however, that Cyclas subquadrata, Sow., in Fitton's " Strata below the 

 Chalk," 'Geol. Trans.,' 2nd series, vol. iv, p. 177 and p. 345, pi. 21, fig. 8, is the 

 Esfheria under notice. 



13. EsTHERIA PORBESII, SpCC. NoV. PI. IV, figS. 8 11. 



Height of valve -^ inch more than -j^ inch ft inch. 



Length -jV » less than ^^ „ || „ 



Proportion... 10 to 15, or 1 : 1|- 31 to 35, or 1 : I + 15 to 20, or 1 : If 



Carapace-valves ovato-oblong in the adult (fig. 8), suborbicular in the young state 



^ • Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,' vol. x, p. 456, where further references are given. See also the 

 paper hy Mr. A. Tylor on the same subject, ibid., vol. xviii, p. 250, where a general section of the 

 Sussex cliffs indicates the relative positions of these various shales. 



2 This is doubtless the " cliff west of St. Leonard's" where Dr. Fitton found Estheria. 



3 Jukes's 'Student's Manual of Geology,' 2nd edit., p. 605. 



