330 
VINE : CARBONIFEROUS POLYZOA. 
collection of a good local worker is now, I believe, not available 
for reference and identification. I have, however, the box of 
Shale ; and since I have been asked to read a Paper on Polyzoa 
before the Members of this Society, I thought that no better 
opportunity than the present would be offered me in working- out 
for you the Polyzoa of these Northern Limestone Shales. 
There is not known in the whole of Great Britain Shales so 
rich in organic forms as the Hairmyres Shale of Scotland. Pass- 
ing over other species there are no fewer than about twenty-four 
or twenty-six distinctly typical Polyzoa. The individuals are so 
numerous that their fragments may be reckoned by millions, and 
a pound or so of the unwashed Shale, will yield after washing, em- 
ployment in mounting for many years. It was from this store- 
house that the Messrs. Young, of Glasgow, gathered so many of 
their choicest treasures, and I may say that many species really 
new to science are not yet exhausted. These Shales belong to 
the lower Limestone series of Scotland, the equivalent of which 
would be the stage B. of Etheridge ; or perhaps more plainly 
speaking, the equivalent of the " Scaur Limestone Series " of the 
North of England.* It is not so much the Geological horizon 
that I want to discuss now as the Palaeontological. The Polyzoa 
of the Hairmyres district are beautifully preserved, and one genus 
at least, the Glauconome, is typical in all its species ; and I 
venture to say that any one who has carefully examined the 
Hairmyres Glauconome could never afterwards be mistaken in 
their identity. The Cerioporidce are also well represented ; and 
the genera RhaMomeson, Ceriopora, and Hypkasmapora do not 
differ from similar genera found in other localities. If we leave 
the lower Limestones series of Scotland, and examine the Polyzoa 
in some of the Shales of the upper Limestone series, a marked 
difference in the character of the species is immediately notice- 
able. In the Gare and Belstonburn districts it is sometimes 
* Robert Etheridge, Esq., F.R.S , Presidential Address to the Geological 
Society, 1881, p. 177. 
