284 THE YOUNG 



their appearance under pieces of lime- 

 stone. Whilst searching for shells we 

 disturbed no end of nests of red ants 

 (Formica mfa) under the stones. 

 "When the nest was uncovered the 

 ants would each seize a pupa and 

 hurry it off down the chinks among 

 the grass roots. The searching v/as 

 enlivened every now and then by one 

 of the party shouting out '^Where's 

 the spider fellow," " Where's the fossil 

 man," or " Which is the one that col- 

 lects black-bats," if anything turned 

 up that they thought out of the com- 

 mon, and which the finders did not 

 collect themselves. Sometimes when 

 the party called for made his appear- 

 ance a toad or something equally ab- 

 surd was handed him amidst the 

 laughter of all around. 



We next moved on towards the top, 

 and soon had our hammers and chisels 

 at work among the limestone blocks 

 near the caverns. Here one of the 

 party found the tail of a fossil trilobite, 

 while we, after about a quarter of an 

 hour's work, found ourselves in posses- 

 sion of a good series of Atrypa reticu- 

 laris ^ A, affinis, Bhynconella^ plenty of 

 encrinite stems, small cup corals, and 

 several pieces of coral fragments and 

 protozoa. We also came across a 

 couple of fine cup corals weighing 

 about twenty pounds each, but these 

 were rather to heavy for us to carry 

 away. These cup corals are frequently 

 to be met with there weighing several 



NATURALIST. 



hundredweight (rather too heavy for a 

 cabinet we should imagine). Others 

 in the party found T, depressa and 

 MeriMla tumida. Whilst on the top 

 of the hill some one proposed that we 

 should go into one of the caverns, and 

 as the result of the proposal, seven 

 assembled at the bottom of the mouth 

 of the largest, when we found we had 

 no candles or lanterns to light our 

 way; but as two of the party had 

 some newspapers and another a large 

 sheet of brown paper (we all had 

 matches), we decided to make torches 

 of them, so twisted up two or three 

 large ones, lighted one of them and 

 started off, single file, into the yawning 

 depths of the earth. At a distance of 

 about two hundred yards from the 

 mouth we came upon a tramway with 

 an empty truck standing there. One 

 of the party gave it a push, and off it 

 went down the incline, rumbling along 

 till the noise was lost in the distance. 

 We started off to follow the line, and 

 after two or three stoppages in total 

 darkness while they were lighting a 

 fresh torch, came up with the truck, 

 which had gone nearly half a mile from 

 where it had started, until it was 

 stopped by another truck standing on 

 a cross line which led to a perpendicu- 

 lar shaft with a blow-george on the 

 top. We thought it was raining down 

 the shaft at first, as it was like a show- 

 er bath, but on examining it more 

 minutely found it was only the water 



