FROM THE INFERIOR OOLITE. 207 



the Yorkshire Coast,' in his plate of Coralline Oolite fossils, and was said to be collected 

 from the Great Oolite at Whitwell, and the Coralline Oolite of Malton and Scarborough. 

 The statement that it occurred in the Coral Rag led both Professor Forbes and myself to 

 suppose that it might be a variety of Echinus perlatus, and under this impression it was 

 described as such by us both. Since the publication of my Memoir, I have visited most 

 of the typical collections of Yorkshire fossils, with the view of determining some doubtful 

 points relative to the stratigraphical position of certain species, and from this examination 

 I am satisfied that Stomechinus germinans has not been found out of the Inferior (Great?) 

 Oolite of Whitwell and other Inferior Oolite localities. The statement that it came from 

 Malton was first made by a collector who obtained the specimens at Whitwell, and sold 

 them as Malton fossils. Mr. Reed, of York, who was acquainted with the facts, writes me 

 as follows : " There cannot, I think, be a doubt as to the correctness of your previously 

 strongly expressed opinion regarding the distribution of Echinus germinans, Phil., and 

 Clypeus semisulcatus, Phil., in the Oolitic beds, very exclusively in the lower series, and 

 not both in the latter and Coralline Oolite, as stated by Professor Phillips in his work on 

 the ' Geology of Yorkshire.' From long experience I am decidedly of opinion that neither 

 species have ever been found in the Coralline Oolite at Malton or the neighbourhood. The 

 error originated from the fact of a local collector, named Larcum, having sold the speci- 

 mens which he obtained at the different quarries, and from different strata, six or eight 

 miles round Malton, as Malton fossils. He was in the habit of procuring his specimens 

 from the Great Oolite of Whitwell and Weston, also from some quarries at or near 

 Coneysthorpe, most probably Inferior Oolite, and from the Calcareous grit at Appleton, 

 as well as from the Coralline Oolite of Malton. I may also remark that he was wholly 

 ignorant of geology, and I know, from personal experience, that he was unacquainted with 

 the distribution and names of the Oolitic beds in the neighbourhood, having for many 

 years obtained fossils from him. He was, I believe, the exclusive dealer in Malton for 

 more than half a century." 



Professor M'Coy described* a specimen of this species as Echinus diademata, from the 

 Coralline Oolite of Malton. Through the kindness of Professor Sedgwick I have been 

 enabled to examine this specimen, belonging to the Cambridge Museum, and have com- 

 pared it with my Whitwell specimens, and there cannot be a doubt of their identity. 



This species was first figured by Professor Phillips, in the ' Geology of Yorkshire/ as 

 Echinus germinans. It was afterwards figured and described, for the first time, in my 

 ' Memoir on the Cidaridse of the Oolites/ as Echinus perlatus, var. germinans. Pro- 

 fessor Forbes, in Morris's ' Catalogue,' and in lettering PI. IV, Decade V, of the ' Memoirs 

 of the Geological Survey,' retained the same name. Mr. Salter, in his elaborate article 

 on this urchin, in the same work, describes it as Echinus perlatus. 



* 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' 2d series, vol. ii, p. 410. 



