PltOCEEDTNGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 



153 



form is special to any stratigraphical portion of the Lias ; but that in 

 the Cotswokl district, wherever Gryphites numerously occur, all the forms 

 most widely diverging from the ordinary type of G. incurva are found, 

 presenting differences from it, so infinitely modified as to make arbitrary 

 separation between them of specific value, quite as unintelligible as absurd. 

 These observations may be applied with equal propriety to other species 

 and genera of shells equally common in the Liassic strata." 



The Annual Meeting of this club took place on March 4th, on which oc- 

 casion there was a large muster of the members and their friends from dif- 

 ferent parts of the county. Captain Guise, president, read the annual 

 address, in which he gave a detailed account of all the different meetings 

 which had taken place during the past year, and pointed out the various 

 novelties which the members had noted in their excursions to Weston- 

 super-Mare, Cardiff", Penarth, etc. After the address, the meetings for 

 18G3 were fixed, and Mr. Buckman's report on the tumulus opened by 

 the club at Nymphsfieldlast summer, was read ; one very fine human skull 

 and portions of other skulls obtained from this ancient burial-place, were 

 exhibited. At the dinner fifty-eight members were present. Dr. Wright 

 read a report on the collection of organic remains made by Miss Holland, 

 of Dumbleton Hall. The Lias beds in the neighbourhood of Dumbleton 

 consist of Lower Lias, Middle Lias, and Upper Lias. The report con- 

 tained an enumeration of all the species found in each of these divisions 

 of that great formation ; these detailed lists will appear in the Transac- 

 tions of the Society. Dumbleton Hill has long been a capital locality for 

 the fossils of the marlstone and for the fish-bed of the LTpper Lias. Dr. 

 Wright likewise exhibited a vertebral and other bones of a large reptile, 

 which had lately been discovered at Stowell Park. This saurian is new 

 to England, although the same or an allied form has been found in a for- 

 mation of the same age, the Great Oolite of Normandy. The bones be- 

 long to the genus Teleosaurus. The next communication was by the Eev. 

 T. W. Norwopd, on a tumulus which had been recently exposed at Fox- 

 cote, near Whittington, in this county. This locality had been visited on 

 February 25th, when several human bones, horses' bones, and flint-Hakes 

 were found. In another part of this tumulus a vessel containing a num- 

 ber of Roman coins of Yalens, Valentinian, Tetricus, Faustina, Constan- 

 tino II., Claudius II., was said to have been discovered, together with a 

 fragment of rude pottery and a piece of rusty iron. The author believed 

 the grave to have been a Roman burial-place of about the fourth or fifth 

 century. The next paper was an account of the natural history of the 

 Severn, by Mr. John Jones, of Gloucester. In it lists were given of the 

 fishes, shells, diatoms, and plants living in the estuary of the river. 



Mr. Notcutt read an outline of the proceedings of the Cheltenham 

 Working Naturalists' Association, formed in 18(31, for the purpose espe- 

 cially of uniting the naturalists of the town in the ctlbrt to work out a 

 Complete flora and fauna of the district. The area which the Association 

 lias thus undertaken to work out, embraces a definite district laid out on 

 the Ordnance map, and averaging a radius of about six miles from Chel- 

 tenham as a centre ; — 649 species are found within these limits. Of thoe 

 112 are new to the district, being unrecorded in the Flora published eigh- 

 teen years since by Mr. Buokman ; while 07 of the plants recorded in 

 that work have not been seen by the members ; of these, it is believed 

 that 17 arc either extinct in the places assigned for them, or are- mis- 

 nomers, while the other 50 will probably be yet rediscovered. The 

 mosses have been studied by Mr. Beach, and his lists contain 1 If! species. 

 In the animal kingdom. Dr. Bird has contributed a list of 24 species 



VOL. VI. X 



