188 R. F. TOMES ON THE STRATIGRAPHY OF THE 



Montlivaltia rugosa, Duncan, Supp. Brit. Eoss. Cor. pt. iv. No. 2, 

 p. 58, pi. xiv. figs. 1, 2, 3, pi. xv. figs. 14, 16, 17, pi. xvi. figs. 

 5, 15. 



This species, first noticed by Dr. Wright near Cheltenham, has 

 been subsequently found at several other places. It occurred in 

 great numbers in a cutting of the Stratford-on-Avon and Honey- 

 bourne Eailway, near the latter place. All the examples were confined to 

 a brown-mud bed, about a yard in thickness, in which every thing 

 appeared to be rotten ; but it occurred in greatest abuD dance in the 

 bottom of the bed, and a great many were in an upright position. 

 I found as many as five attached by their bases to the valve of a 

 large Pinna. Others were found growing on Gryphites, Limce, 

 and other shells, and even on dead and water worn specimens of 

 their own kind. They were so numerous that a bushel might very 

 easily have been obtained when the cutting was in progress ; but 

 from the rottenness of the bed it was difficult to meet with a perfect 

 specimen. In this mud-bed were numerous half-decayed examples 

 of Ammonites densinodus, A. armatus, and A. nodulosus ; and under 

 it, in a hard blue marly shale, were well-preserved examples of 

 Ammonites Guibalianus or an allied species. I have a specimen of 

 this coral given to me by Mr. G. E. Gavey, from a cutting at Aston 

 Magna, near Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, where it was 

 associated with Ammonites armatus (young), numerous Gasteropoda, 

 endless numbers of jSpiriferina rostrata, and a few examples of 

 Montlivaltia mucronata. 



In 1861 I found a single example lying in the bottom of the clay- 

 pit of a brickyard at Hill Morton, near Eugby, where many 

 examples of Ammonites densinodus and A. armatus were scattered 

 about. Another specimen has been found near Leicester ; but I 

 know nothing of its associated fossils. I have seen a very young 

 example of a coral in all respects like the young examples from 

 Honeybourne, growing on a Gryphite, which was found by my friend 

 Mr. Beesley in the Eenny-Compton railway-cutting. 



Montlivaltia mucronata, Duncan, Supp. Brit. Eoss. Cor. pt. iv. No. 

 2, p. 59, pi. xiv. figs. 4-11 & 14-16, pi. xv. figs. 10-13. 



The first mention of this species, or indeed of any other coral, 

 in the Lias of this country, was made in 1822 by Coneybeare and 

 Phillips in their ' Outlines of the Geologv of England and Wales,' 

 where it is called " a species of Turbinolia " which " occurs in the 

 upper beds of the Lias formation, especially at Eenny-Compton 

 Tunnel on the Oxford canal." No other specimen of the Eenny- 

 Compton corals are recorded until about 1859, when, in company 

 with my friend Mr.- Etheridge, Mr. Kershaw, and Mr. Brodie, I 

 picked up a solitary example on the spoil bank of the canal. This 

 suggested an examination of the adjacent railway- cutting ; and in a 

 slip of earth there several other specimens were speedily obtained. 

 Since that time, during the construction of the East and West Junc- 

 tion Eailway through the same bed, it has been so abundant that 



