Page:Pocock, The Scottish Silurian Scorpion.pdf/1



knowledge of the existence of scorpions in marine beds of Upper Silurian age dates from the publication of an announcement to this effect in the 'Comptes rendus de l'Académie des Sciences,' Paris, in December, 1884, wherein Professor Lindström and Dr. Thorell gave an account of the discovery of the well-preserved remains of a fossil scorpion at Gotland in Sweden, proposing for the new form the name. This important find in palæontology attracted wide-spread interest, and was discussed in various journals, scientific and popular. In 1885 it was followed by an exhaustive memoir on the fossil by Lindström and Thorell ('Kongl. Sv. Vet.-Akad. Handl.,' xxi, No. 9, 1885). Prior to the appearance of this memoir an article entitled "Ancient Air Breathers," by Mr. B. N. Peach, was printed in 'Nature' (vol. xxxi, pp. 295—298, 1885). In this a preliminary description was given of a second Upper Silurian scorpion, which had been unearthed in the summer of 1883 at Lesmahago, in Lanarkshire, and formed part of the rich collection of fossils belonging to Dr. Hunter. The value of this second specimen was enhanced by the circumstance that it fortunately lies with its ventral surface exposed, and is thus the complement, as it were, of the Gotland fossil, of which