BRITISH FOSSILS. 



3 



Fleming to Smith's figure being a mistake, we retain it for the fossil 

 now figured, and the varieties here associated with it. 



As, however, the name has been used with different degrees of restric- 

 tion, it is necessary further to inquire into the grounds of its limitation 

 by different naturalists, and also how far varieties more or less marked 

 have been separated with specific appellations from the normal form. 

 And this leads us to inquire what may be the Nucleolites scutata of 

 Lamarck (Animaux sans Vert., 3, p. 36). That author cites, first, 

 the " Echinobrissus " of Breyn.* Next the Spatangus depressus of 

 Leske's edition of Klein (1778), t. 5, f. 1-2, copied in pi. 157, f. 5-6, 

 of the " Encyclopedic Methodique ;" and he quotes a second variety, 

 with a higher back, also from a figure of Breynius. These figures 

 agree, as well as old and nearly worthless representations can agree, 

 with our variety a, major ; and I assent to the proceeding of Bronn, who 

 considers it a variety of clunicularis, of the normal form of which how- 

 ever he curiously enough quotes the figure in Breynius, first referred to 

 by Lamarck as a representation of his scutatus. In the second edition of 

 Lamarck, vol. iii. (1840), Dujardin brings in a new set of synonyms, 

 including Clypeus lobatus, Fleming, and Nucleolites clunicularis, Bronn. 

 They are brought together, as is too frequently the practice among 

 authors who make a great display of synonyms, without regard to their 

 origin, whether original and critical, or blindly copied. The diagnosis 

 originally given by Lamarck is scarcely suflficiently distinct to warrant our 

 using scutata as a specific appellation in preference to clunicularis ; how- 

 ever, he gives no locality for his fossil. The name Spatangus depressus 

 of Leske is adopted as Ecliinites depressus by Schlotheim (Petrefacten- 

 kunde, 1820), and he gives Essex as a locality for his specimen. This 

 was probably a mistake, and as there may be doubts about Leske's 

 species, that name had better also be dropped. In the article Nucleo- 

 lites, " Diet, des Sc. Nat.," vol. xxxv. p. 213 (1825), Blainville quotes 

 the species Nucleolites scutata after Lamarck, and also mentions that the 

 locality is unknown. Alongside of it he gives Nucleolites Sowerhyi^ 

 Defrance, with a few words of description stating that the species is very 

 concave beneath, and that the anus is placed very near the summit. He 

 states that it occurs near Caen, in " la couche a polypiers," and near 

 Sandwich, in England — an evident mistake. This possibly may be in- 

 tended for our typical clunicularis, but to such a description, unaccom- 

 panied by a figure, we can give no authority. In F. A. Homer's 

 " Versteinerungen des Nord-Deutschen Oolithen Gebirges " (1836), a 

 Nucleolite is figured (pi. 1, f. 19,) and described under the name of 



* Breyn (Schediasma de Echinis, 1732) lias two species of his "Echinobrissus," 

 E. planior, the figure of which (t. vi. f. 1,2) appears to be our var. a ; and E. elaiior, 

 which is in all probability a bad representation of our var. y. 



