CONCHOLOGY. 



Fossilia-1? AMILY, NANTES; or, SWIMMERS, 

 Gf/iws-MONOCULITHOS. Sj>ccfcs-GIGANTEA. 



Generic Character. — Body tripartite, narrow at the com- 

 mencement of the tail ; the head gibbous and 

 flattened, having two projecting tubercles, resem- 

 bling eyes ; cheeks hexagonal and sealey ; mouth 

 central and elongated ; the body and tail covered. 

 with arcuated ribs ; the tail ending in three small 

 points joined firmly to a pointed base. 



THIS singular petrifaction of the animal above descri- 

 bed, supposed to have been originally marine, and depo- 

 sited by the sea at the time of the Deluge, is found 

 plentifully in t!ie lime-stone rocks of Dudley in Stafford- 

 shire, and other species are occasionally discovered in 

 Derbyshire, also in Germany and Bohemia. The difficulty 

 of knowing with what living creature it was most natural 

 to place them, has very much puzzled every naturalist, 

 and on this account it has been named by some, the 

 Monoculus Paradoxus. From a general resemblance, how- 

 ever, which it has to the animal called Monoculus, it has 

 received its present name ; in which we are justified by 

 the remarks of Linnaeus, and the late ingenious and much 

 lamented naturalist, Mr. Martin of Buxton, author of 

 an Essay on the Derbyshire Fossils, 



The present curious specimen, however, is wholly 

 undescribed by any author whatever, being much larger 

 and of a different pattern to those hitherto described, for 

 which reason we have denominated it the Gigantea, and 

 Monoculithos or Monoculus turned to stone. 



