528 



FOSSILS OF THE 



[Oh. XXVI. 



so that it covers about 25 square feet of ground; and the Limulus 

 Moluccanus, the great King Crab of China and the eastern seas, 

 which, when adult, measures 1 J- foot across its carapace, and is 3 feet 

 -in length. 



Parka decipiens. — In the same gray paving-stones and coarse roof- 

 ing-slates in which the Cephalaspis and Pterygotus occur, in Forfar- 

 shire and Kincardineshire, the remains of grass-like plants abound in 

 such numbers as to be useful to the geologist by enabling him to 

 identify corresponding strata at distant points. Whether these be 

 fucoids, as I formerly conjectured, or freshwater plants of the family 

 Pluviales, as some botanists suggest, cannot yet be determined. 

 They are often accompanied by fossils, called " berries " by the 

 quarrymen, and which are not unlike the form which a compressed 

 blackberry or raspberry might assume (see figs. 592 and 593). Some 

 of these were first observed in the year 1828, in gray sandstone of 

 the same age as that of Forfarshire, at Parkhill near Newburgh, in 

 the north of Fife, by Dr. Fleming. I afterwards found them on the 

 north side of Strathmore, in the vertical shale beneath the conglom- 

 erate, and in the same beds in the Sidlaw Hills, at all points where 

 fig. 4 is introduced in the section, p. 48. 



Dr. Fleming has compared these fossils to the panicles of a Juncus, 

 or the catkins of Sparganium, or some allied plant, and he was con- 

 firmed in this opinion by finding a specimen at Balrudderie, showing 

 the under surface smoother than the upper, and displaying what may 



Fig. 592. 



Fisr. 593. 



Parka decipiens, Fleming. 



In sandstone of lower beds of Old Bed, 



Ley's Mill, Forfarshire. 



ParJca decipiens, Fleming. 

 In shale of lower beds of Old Eed, Fife. 



Fig. 594. be the place of attachment of a stalk. I have met 



with some specimens in Forfarshire imbedded in 

 sandstone, and not associated with the leaves of 

 plants (see fig. 592), which bore a considerable re- 

 semblance to the spawn of a. recent Natica (fig. 

 594), in which the eggs are arranged in a thin layer 

 of British species °^ san d, an( * seem to have acquired a polygonal 

 form by pressing against each other ; but, as no 

 gasteropodous shells have been detected in the same 



formation, the ParJca has probably no connection with this class of 



organisms. 



of Natica. 



