394 REV. THOMAS BROWN ON THE MOUNTAIN LIMESTONE AND 
mation of Saarbruck in Lorraine. The shelly covering seems to have been pecu- 
liarly thin and tender, for though the limestone is singularly favourable for their 
preservation, yet there is a difficulty in making out the form with sufficient dis- 
tinctness for scientific description. Its resemblance to the shrimps of our shores 
is obvious, however, at a glance, and like them it seems to have been social in its 
habits; for at the only spot in which it occurred a whole swarm was laid open at 
once, and very remarkable it was to see these tiny forms of crustacean life lying 
close to each other in every imaginable attitude on the surface of the rock. For 
the following remarks and figure, singularly true to nature, I am indebted to Mr 
SALTER :— 
“There can be little doubt this is of the same genus as the 
curious Gampsonyxz jimbriatus of Jordan, figured so well by 
Von Meyer in his “ Paleontographica” for 1854, Vol. VI. t. t. 
That species was found in the coal of Saarbruck and Salz- 
bach, and it was regarded by Von Meyer as belonging to 
the Amphipod group, the only example yet known of a true 
Malacostracous crustacean below the New Red Sandstone. 
Our specimens, though crushed, show much fewer segments 
than the German fossil, and it is no doubt desirable to com- vronectes (Gampsonyx of 
pare specimens of both. I am not clear about any appendages Jordan) sca 
to the head, which appears (if that be not due to pressure) to be elongated. 
Seven body-rings and a minute telson are all that can be made out. But the 
tail appendages are very like those of a shrimp, and the body-rings not dis- 
similar.” * 
A single remark of a general kind I may be permitted to offer. One of the 
most delightful passages in Patry’s ‘Natural Theology” is his description of the 
shrimp, and the proof of the goodness of God in communicating such manifest en- 
joyment of life to these lower orders of being, diffusing such happiness among 
myriads of His creatures. When we look back into the old creations of geology 
with their predaceous races, covered with bony armature, and furnished with 
instruments of destruction so formidable, we are ready to feel as if the world 
must have been a scene only of darkness and terror; yet the light of God’s love 
must have shone then as now, and perhaps the little crustacean here before us 
may give some indication of this truth. If Pauey can stand on our modern 
shores, and, amidst the social instincts of its shrimps, can point to the fulness of 
their enjoyment as a proof of the goodness of God, I know not why, in the little 
Gampsonyx of these primeval rocks, evidently not less social in its instincts, — 
we may not read the same lesson, and feel that then of old, as now, the world — 
which He had made bore witness that ‘God is love.” 
fish.—These remains deserve particular attention. At Ardross I detected small — 
* Mr Satter, MSS. 


