During the present survey of Cornwall Mr. Clement Reid has discovered several interesting fossils which provide a substantial addition to the previously recorded Devonian fauna of that part of the country. The forms described below were found by Mrs. Clement Reid, to whose patience and skill I am also indebted for the developing of the best parts of the specimens. My best thanks are due to my colleague Mr. H. H. Thomas for the accompanying drawings of the two forms.

The Reptiliferous Sandstone of Moray first attracted attention in 1851, on the discovery in it by Patrick Duff of a skeleton of Telerpeton elyinense at Spynie. This was described by Mantell (17), but did not raise any doubts as to the age of the bed in which it was found, which was at that time universally regarded as Upper Old Red Sandstone. This opinion was not disturbed until Huxley showed that Stagonolepis Robertsoni, Ag., was a crocodilian, the allies of which were of Triassic age (9); when Huxley showed that Hyperodapedon occurred in the undoubted Trias of Coton End, near Warwick (11), the point was generally regarded as settled. Meanwhile some footprints had been found by Captain Brickenden (6) at Cummingstone, near Elgin, which were recognized by Huxley to be similar to those described by Sir William Jardine from Annandale. The discovery by C. Moore (19) that the well-known quarry at. Linksfield, formerly supposed to be in rocks of Wealden age, was really opened in beds of Rhætic age appeared to be a strong argument in favour of the Triassic age of the reptile-bearing beds. It had, however, already been shown by Hugh Miller (18) that this mass was really a boulder resting on an ice-scratched surface of the subjacent rocks, hence the evidence drawn from the occurrence of this mass is quite inconclusive. The discovery by Professor Judd (15) that a small patch of a rock identical in physical characters with the cherty rock of Stotfield existed on the north side of the Moray Firth, which was conformably covered by an unfossiliferous series of beds which graded up into the Lower Lias, afforded further evidence of the correctness of Huxley's conclusions as to the age of these beds.

The borings of the Polychæt Annelid Polydora ciliata (Johnston) are familiar in limestone pebbles and the stouter mollusc-shells on our coasts, but shales and occasionally other rocks are not free from their attacks. They may be recognized by the double aperture, often loosely described as keyhole-shaped, leading to a U-shaped cylindrical tube. The union of the two apertures in a single depression, by the loss of the organically formed septum between them, produces a more slit-like opening, whereas if the surface of the pebble be further worn the two round holes are more clearly distinguished. The differences between the burrows of Polydora and those of other lithodomous Annelids, especially the associated Dodecaceria, were clearly stated by Dr. W. C. M'Intosh in a very full paper “On the Boring of certain Annelids” (1868, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. [4], ii, pp. 276–95, pls. xviii–xx).

Mr. A. Savin, of Cromer, has been kind enough to send me for examination a large number of small vertebrate remains which he has recently collected from the Upper Freshwater Bed of the Norfolk Forest Bed Series at West Runton. Among these there is one little specimen which deserves to be recorded, as it represents a genus not hitherto recognized in the ‘Forest Bed’. The specimen is a right maxilla with three grinders in place, indubitably belonging to the genus Cricetus; in size it is distinctly larger than the common Hamster Cricetus vulgaris (= C. frumentarius), which is the largest species of the genus living at the present day. Only once before has Cricetus been recognized in Britain, W. A. Sanford having identified from the Hutton Cave, Mendip Hills, remains of a small mouse-like species which he referred to Cricetus songarus.

Having now given a short account of the geology of the long line of coast from Yarmouth to Eastbourne, one may say of the first part of it, north of the Thames, that it is, so to speak, most favourably constructed for coast-erosion. Without a single hard or firm rock, such as the Chalk; without anything that can form a nearly perpendicular cliff of any height, no cliff indeed being high enough to give rise to a respectable landslip; composed of loose sand and gravels, loams and clays (the last partly strengthened by thin layers of soft stone), there is really nothing to withstand either the assaults of atmospheric action from above or of the sea below. Such parts as are of special interest or have been subject to special observation will now be noticed.

The following particulars were obtained with the assistance of Mr. Isaac Sumsion, jun., Hon. Sec. of the Golf Club:—

The shore and dune sand of St. Ives Bay is typically light-coloured owing to the predominance of calcareous matter in the form of shell fragments, etc. But the actual proportion of the platy shell fragments to the heavier and more granular ingredients of the sand varies considerably, especially within the limits of high- and lowwater marks, as is usually the case. Some of the heavier ingredients are dark-coloured, and may be observed to have been streaked out in bands or aggregated in patches at the surface, where they have been concentrated by the action of the waves. Where heavy minerals abound, tidal action can be seen to have effected a persistent concentration about the mean high-water mark, where the heavier ingredients predominate for at least a foot beneath the surface. Such a band can be easily traced for a considerable distance in the vicinity of the Red River.

Having had occasion to work at the Chalk Rock in this quarry, we took advantage of the opportunity to examine the whole of the Chalk exposed above that bed, which, owing to the inaccessibility of the upper half of the quarry, had not been examined in detail. The floor of the quarry coincides in part with the top of the Chalk Rock, and as there is a vertical face of nearly 50 feet of Chalk above it, the junction of the zones of Holaster planus and Micraster cortestudinarium was to be expected in the upper portion of the section, and it was with the object of defining the junction of these two zones that we paid attention to the higher beds.