Notes on Natural History. 



179 



well-preserved set of fossils. Their great number and variety induced Mr. W. 

 Cunuington, F.G.S., to send it to the British Museum, in order that the fossils 

 might be named and identified. This has been done and the slab returned with 

 a full list of the fossils, as <nven below : — 



1. — Vennicularia concava, Sow. 



2. — Cardium Hillanum, Sow. 



3. — Corbula elcgans, Sow. 



4. — Cytlierea caperata, Sow. 



5. — Trigonia. 



6. — Venus sublcevis, Sow. 



7. — Astarte formosa, Sow. 



8. — Actceon affinis , Sow. 



9. — Littorina gracilis, Sow. 



10. — Dimorphosoma (Aporrfiais) 



calcarata, Sow. 



11. — Turritella costata, Sow. 



12. — Turritella granulata, Sow. 



13. — Dentalium. 



14. — Avellana incrassata, Mont. 



15. — Area, or Cucullcea. 



16. — Exogyra conica, Sow. 



W. Heward Bell. 



Plciosaurus macromerus (?) from the Kimeridge Clay of Swindon. 



In the spring of 1894 our Society received a letter from our Local Secretary — 

 Mr. Shopland — stating that the remains of a large Saurian had been discovered 

 in the clay pits of the Swindon Brick and Tile Company, and that the company 

 would make it over to us if we would arrange for its removal. Accordingly Mr. 

 W. Heward Bell and myself proceeded to Swindon to inspect the beast. We 

 found that a considerable quantity of bones had been already dug out and had 

 been carefully put away by the workmen. When, however, they discovered that 

 they had come on something like a complete skeleton, the company's manager, 

 Mr. Smith— to whose care and interest in the matter the Society is much indebted 

 — ordered the work there to be discontinued, and the remains to be covered up to 

 protect them from the weather. 



The skeleton was lying deep down in the great clay pit in the Kimeridge 

 Clay just at the foot of the hill on which Old Swindon stands. It was from this 

 same position that the skeleton of a very large Saurian (Omasaurus), now in 

 the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, was removed some years ago. 



The skeleton as it lay in the clay was entirely disjointed, and had evidently 

 fallen completely to pieces before it was covered up at all. None of the bones 

 were lying in their proper positions, but they were all mixed up together, and 

 the more slender bones, such as the ribs, had been broken into innumerable 

 fragments by the pressure of the superincumbent clay. We carefully collected 

 the fragments of these ribs, but I was unable to put together a single complete 

 example, most of them having parts of their length so rotten with pyrites, &o., 

 that they crumbled to pieces at a touch, whilst the same bone with one completely 

 rotten end would have the other end perhaps imbedded in one of the cement-like 

 masses of indurated clay by which the vertebra? were for the most part surrounded. 

 The vertebra; themselves were found scattered about like the other bones, and 

 lying flat in the clay separately. The whole of the bones that could be found 

 aud got out, as well as those already excavated, we took away with us, and after 

 having been cleaned aud mended as far as possible — a long and tedious process — 

 they have been placed in the Society's Museum at Devizes. 



