6. On the DISCOVERY of a FOSSIL SCORPION in the BRITISH COALMEASURES. BY HENRY WOODWARD, ESQ., F.R.S., F.G.S., of the British Museum. (Read November 3, 1875.)

[PLATE VIII.]

THE paucity of the remains of any class of terrestrial air-breathing animals preserved in a fossil state, has given to such organisms a special interest in the eyes of geologists, not only as marking the probable position of old land-surfaces, but also as giving us some slight indication of the climatal and zoological conditions of this, to us, otherwise terra incognita.

But this interest is greatly enhanced when such remains occur in strata of paleozoic age, in which evidences of land-dwelling animals are extremely rare. Indeed, but for our paleozoic coalstrata, we should have little left, save evidences of marine life, older than the Trias.

I have now the pleasure of announcing the discovery, in two distinct localities in England, of the remains of a fossil Scorpion in strata of Coal-measure age, and possibly in a third locality in Scotland.

So long ago as 1835, Count Sternberg published the discovery of a remarkable fossil Scorpion in the Coal formation at the village of Chomle, near Radnitz, Bohemia, afterwards named and described by Corda as Cyclophthalmus senior (Corda in Böhmischen Verhandlungen,' 1836, and Wiegmann's Archiv,' 1836, ii. p. 360).

This is the first authentic record of an Arachnide in the Coalmeasures. It has been figured in the Transactions of the Royal Bohemian Museum;' and these figures were reproduced by the late Dr. Buckland in his Geology and Mineralogy' (1836, plate 46' and 46". fig. 13).

"This fossil Scorpion," writes Buckland, "differs from existing species less in general structure than in the position of the eyes. In the latter respect it approaches nearest to the genus Androctonus, which, like it, has twelve eyes, but differently disposed from those of the fossil species. From the nearly circular arrangement of these organs in the latter animal, it has been ranged under a new genus, Cyclophthalmus" (Buckland, op. cit. vol. i. p. 407).

This remarkable fossil remained unique until 1839, when Corda added a new genus of Pseudo-scorpions, also from the coal of Bohemia, which he named Microlabis.

No other Scorpion was noticed from the Coal-measures until 1868, when Messrs. Meek and Worthen, in their Palæontology of Illinois,' described a new form of this ancient family (from the lower part of the true Coal-measures of Mazon Creek, Morris, Grundy County, Illinois)* under the name of Eoscorpius carbonarius. This

Geological Survey of Illinois (A. H. Worthen, Director), vol. iii. 1868 (Paleontology, by F. B. Meek and A. H. Worthen, p. 560, with woodcut).

form is considered by its describers to be near to the recent American species Buthus hirsutus from California, with which it accords well in its general proportions; but as neither the palpi nor the last three segments of the body are preserved, we fully agree in the conclusions of the learned authors as to the desirability of keeping it distinct generically.

The same locality in Illinois has yielded, in addition to many new and interesting forms of Crustacea, a new genus of Myriopods, named by Messrs. Meek and Worthen Euphoberia, with two species E. armigera and E. major, M. & W., two new Arachnides, named Mazonia Woodiana, M. & W., and Architarbus rotundatus, Scudder, and eight insects, determined by Mr. S. H. Scudder.

In April 1874 I visited an experimental sinking for coal on the estate of the Earl of Dartmouth at Sandwell Park near Birmingham, for the purpose of examining (on behalf of the British Museum) a large series of fossil plants of great interest, from the "Red Rocks overlying the "Thick Coal."

My attention was specially called to an obscure specimen (discovered by Mr. Henry Johnson, C.E., the Secretary and Manager of the Sandwell-Park Colliery Co.) in black shale, which, to my surprise and pleasure, proved on examination to be the remains of a fossil Scorpion (Pl. VIII. fig. 1).

In November 1874 I received from Dr. D. R. Rankin, of Carluke, a single segment (preserved in the round) of an Articulate from the shale-beds of the upper limestone series of the Coal-measures near Carluke, which I am unable to assign to any other group of Articulata; and I believe it to be an abdominal segment of a Scorpion (figs. 5, 5a, 5b).

In August last, Mr. Edward Wilson of Nottingham (a most zealous and careful collector of geological specimens, and thoroughly acquainted with the geology of the country around Nottingham) forwarded me several specimens from the clay-ironstone nodules of the Coal-measures, Skegby New Colliery, near Mansfield. Two of these clay-ironstone nodules exhibit, now that they have been split open-one, the body-segments of a fossil Scorpion (fig. 2); and the other, one of its palpi (fig. 3). So interesting an addition to the already numerous forms of Arthropoda from the English Coalmeasures deserves to be made known as widely as possible, that those geologists who live near workable coal-beds where the clayironstone nodules occur may be encouraged by these "finds" to make use of their hammers and their eyes to furnish us with more perfect remains of this ancient air-breather of the coal-period.

As the specimens of Scorpion from the coal are at present very imperfect, I will only point out that our Scorpion agrees best with an Indian form which I cannot very well distinguish from Scorpio afer; but I prefer to adopt Messrs. Meek and Worthen's genus Eoscorpius with the specific designation of anglicus for the fossil form, and to await the discovery of more perfect remains before venturing to define its characters more minutely.