Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 27.djvu/601

 eggs of these flying lizards (' Ornithosauria,' p. 106). That they are reptilian eggs there cannot be any doubt ; and as they add somewhat to the knowledge of the Reptilia of the Secondary rocks, and are likely to be quoted by writers, I venture to give them a specific name.

Mr. Buckman has already, in the Quarterly Journal of this Society, described some eggs which he discovered in the Great Oolite of Cirencester. From their form he determined them to be reptilian ; and on examining the sculpturing on the surface of the egg, I find his determination is confirmed. He proposed for them the generic name Oolithes ; and, employing this, I now add to the oblong form described by him the round Stonesfield eggs as a second species, with the designation Oolithes sphoericus.

The Rev. Thomas Pox, of Brixton, Isle of Wight, has supplied me with another and much smaller egg, which he obtained from the Wealden in that locality, and which he also believed to be a fruit.

The three species may be thus characterized : —

Oolithes, Buckman, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xv. p. 107.

O. Bathonicae, Buckman, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xvi. p. 107. (Pl. XIX. figs. 8 & 11.)

Eggs ovate, twice as long as broad.

Locality. Great Oolite of Cirencester.

O. sphaericus, sp. nov. (Pl. XIX. figs. 4—7, 10.)

Eggs globular, about three quarters of an inch in diameter.

Locality. Stonesfield Slate, Stonesfield.

O. obtusatus, sp. nov. (Pl. XIX. figs. 1-3.)

Egg small, subglobular, obtuse on one side, about three eighths of an inch in diameter.

Locality. Wealden of Brixton, Isle of Wight.

Count Sternberg, in his great work on fossil plants, describes a supposed Alga from Solenhofen under the name of Cystoseirites nutans (' Flora der Vorwelt,' fasc. v. & vi. p. 35, 1833), having a frond with linear branches bearing opposite, linear-lanceolate, acuminate, falcate, and spreading leaves with a single midrib ; and the figure (l. c. pl. viii. fig. 1) agrees with the description, and without doubt accurately represents the specimen. It has been since ascertained that the drawing was made from an imperfect specimen of a cuttle-fish, in which the body is wanting and the fleshy arms have perished, leaving only their horny hooks somewhat in the position they occupied in the animal. These Sternberg mistook for the opposite leaves of an Alga. Minister figured a more perfect specimen, and gave to it the name of Acanthoteuthis speciosa (Beitrage, fasc. i. p. 105, pl. ix. 1843).

Among the specimens for the examination of which I am indebted to the Rev. P. B. Brodie there is a delicate cuttle-bone, which so closely resembles a leaf that it is not to be wondered that it was