The growth of our knowledge of the gigantic extinct birds of Madagascar has been a very slow one. The first notice of their occurrence was published in 1851 by I. Geoffrey St. Hilaire; but it is only within the last two or three years that any part of their skeleton, except the bones of the leg and some very imperfect vertebrae, has been described. Eecently, however, the collections that have reached the Museum of Natural History at Paris, and those obtained by Dr. Forsyth Major for the British Museum, have filled most of the gaps, and all the important parts of the skeleton are now known.

A new Cephalopodan species, Endoceras Burchardii, was described in 1880 by Dewitz, who considered this species as a very typical Endoceras. A description and diagram of its ectosiphon is given in the introductory description of the siphon of Endoceras as an example of a typical Endoceras-siphon. In Endoceras Burchardii each septum, according to Dewitz, forms a septal tube (funnel), extending backwards to the next septum, into the septal tube (funnel) of which a small part of it enters.

The quarrying operations that have been carried out during the last five years at Handley's Pit, Lincoln, have led to the exposure of some very complete and instructive sections in the Middle Lias.

Handley's Pit is situate on the North Cliff, at a distance of about a furlong from the now disused pit of Glaisiers, and immediately below that of the Lincoln Brick Company (late Swan's). When compared with the sequence exposed in Swan's Pit, it affords some interesting details that assist materially in clearing up some of the doubtful points to which Mr. Dalton referred in the Geological Survey Memoir on Lincoln Geology regarding the limitation of the range of A. margaritatus, and the occurrence of the Marlstone Rock-bed in the Lincoln District.

There are now in the British Museum (Natural History Branch) several specimens of fossil Estheriæ from South America, beside those described and figured in the “Monograph of Fossil Estheriæ” (Palæontographical Society), 1862, pp. 109–111, pi. iv, figs. 8–11.

1. There are some from the same locality as those already dealt with, namely, Estheria Forbesii, Jones, from Cacheuta in the province of Mendoza, Argentine Republic.

2. Others collected by David Forbes at another place, namely, Arica, Department of Arequipa, in Southern Peru.

3. An interesting series from Brazil; partly described and illustrated in the Geological Magazine for May, 1897, pp. 195–202, PI. VIII.