Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/69

 Rh centre. To this Plot adds that Camden "and since him [a certain] Dr. Childrey plainly avouch that the Ophiomorphit's of Cainsham have some of them heads, and that in this they differ from those of York-shire" of the story concerning whose heads Plot was at this time apparently ignorant.

That there are special geological reasons why this particular belief may not only be ancient but of remotest antiquity, the following account of the life-history of the ammonite (from the time of its appearance in the Devonian formation) will show:—

It is certain that any chance local discovery of any such uncoiled forms as those just described would materially help to reinforce the popular belief that ammonites were petrified serpents; and it also seems impossible that in the course of centuries such discoveries should not have happened. I should, however, add, in case of