From the days when Nimrod began to be “a mighty hunter before the Lord,” down to those in which our friend Fred. C. Selous shot ‘big game’ in Africa, the hunter has always occupied a specially exalted position and enjoyed a much envied notoriety in all countries. But alas for the wild animals! they are now rapidly becoming exterminated by man, and their place on the prairie, the pampa, the veldt, and in the forest will soon know them no more.

Last April Dr. Anton Friê, of Prague, applied to the Natural History Museum for the loan of a fossil Arachnid which he had seen during a short visit to London in the Summer of 1902, and wished to include in a descriptive monograph of Carboniferous Arachnida which he has now in preparation. Since the specimen is unique, it was unfortunately impossible to accede to the request. Dr. Smith Woodward, however, kindly suggested that I should examine the specimen and, if necessary, describe and figure it, so that perchance an account of it might yet be in time to find a place in the monograph above referred to. The specimen, imbedded in the two pieces of a split nodule of clay-ironstone from the Carboniferous measures at Coseley, near Dudley, belonged formerly to the collection of Mr. Henry Johnson. It bears the register number 1551, and is ticketed by Dr. H. Woodward “Eophrynus, sp. nov.” The dorsal surface is exposed, part of it adhering to one face of the matrix, part to the other.

1.—Description of the Specimen; its generic and specific features.

The carapace unfortunately is crushed, and nothing positive can be affirmed as to its structure save that it appears to have been slightly wider than long, with a shallow, postero-lateral constriction and a straight, transverse, posterior border. In the middle line behind, however, there is an acutely angular impression, obviously representing the median impression occupying the same position and presenting much the same form in Eophrynus prestvicii, H. Woodw. The crushed condition of the carapace suggests that its median area was axially elevated as in the last - mentioned species and in Kreischeria wiedei.

The paper written by the Rev. W. R. Andrews and myself, published in 1894, gave a more complete account of these beds than had previously been attempted; we showed that they were divisible into Lower, Middle, and Upper groups, comparable with those established by Professor E. Forbes in the Purbecks of Dorset, and characterized by the same species of Cyprides. This paper was based on the joint examination of exposures visible in 1890, though one of us, being then resident at Teffont, had observed and collected from these exposures for many years.

In the following year (1895) Mr. H. B. Woodward's memoir on the “Middle and Upper Oolitic Rocks” was published, and his account differed from ours in several particulars, notably as regards the thickness of beds referable to the three several divisions, as to the interpretation of the section near Dinton Station, and as to the total thickness of the formation. We refrained from comment at the time, partly because we were prepared to accept such corrections as were based on the freshly cut exposure near Dinton, and partly because the mapping of the distriot had not then been completed, and we were content to wait till this was done, in the expectation that Mr. Woodward would then reconsider some of the points on which we were not in agreement with him.

The mapping of the area was completed in 1900 by Mr. C. Keid, and this year (1903) the map (Sheet 298, new series), together with an explanatory memoir prepared by Mr. Reid, have been published.

In High Teesdale, on certain hillsides, the structure of which is in most respects clear, the observer is struck by the disappearance of some, generally constant, limestone which ought naturally to occur. The limestone most usually missing is the Great Limestone, which, with the exception of the Melmerby Scar Limestone, is the thickest of all in the dale. Though the ground is almost free from peat and drift, and plainly shows the banks formed by the Four Fathom Limestone and Firestone, there is yet perhaps neither bank nor ‘shake-hole’ (swallow-hole) to represent the Great Limestone. In the cases referred to the difficulty cannot be accounted for by supposing that the limestone along its outcrop is thrown out by a fault, for the outcrops of the beds above and below can be followed round the hill without interruption.

After transferring the collections to the new building in the year 1892, more than ten years work was necessary to finish the arrangement of 251 cases, which occupy seven large rooms. Now nearly all this labour is completed, and those who are interested in palæontology will be glad to learn some details as to the general arrangement of the Museum.

To the north of Tainton, near Burford, Oxon, the 500 O.D. contourline passes through the old quarry grounds where the wellknown Great Oolite freestone may be seen dipping at a high angle to the north-east. The bank falls 100 feet to the brook, 400 yards distant, where culvert and pipe trenches for new field waterworks have exposed what may be a continuation of a fault marked on the one-inch geological map of the Ordnance Survey as following the course of Coombe Brook, a mile to the north.