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FITTON S SECTION AT ATHERFIELD.
303
Groups V. VI. and VIII. Scaphites and Crioceras.
The only account of these remarkable genera from the lower green-
sand which has been published being that of Mr. Sowerby (Geol.
Trans. 2nd Ser. vol. v. pi. 34), I requested that gentleman to examine
the specimens in my collection, and he has favoured me with some
remarks upon them * ; to which at my request he has added a sketch
(upon a scale of yV^^ ^^ ^^^ natural size), that my readers may have
before them all the species hitherto found near Atherfield.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 1.
Figs. 1 and 2, Crioceratites Bowerhankii, Sow., of two varieties ; the second differing from that
previously published in the greater divergence of its outer whorls.
Fig. 3 is Scaphites Hillsil (Geol. Trans. 2nd Ser. iv. pi. 15, fig. 1 and 2).
Fig. 4, Scaphites gigas (Geol. Trans. 2nd Ser. v.), Ancyloceras gigas, D'Orb. pi. 34, f. 2.
The cliif of sand occupied by these fossils extends upon the shore
from the rise of the top of No. 13 to a point about 1300 feet east of

• Mr. Sowerby states, that " the difficulty of arranging these genera arises from
  

the great variation of their characters ; the space between the whorls differing
much in those which have been called Crioceras — as in fig. 1 and fig. 2 — both of
which may be referred to Cr. Bowerbankii. But since none of the species have
a second cm-vature of the shell, after it becomes straight, it appears to me that
this genus ought not to be disturbed. An exception to this character occurs
in Scaphites Hillsii (fig. 3), which so nearly resembles fig. 1 that Prof. Forbes
considers them as of the same species ; the only difference being that the ribbed
portion of the last whorl (fig. 2 and 3) is, in ^S". Hillsii, produced nearly in a straight
line and afterwards incurved. Still it appears to me to be better to retain this
species, than by uniting it with C. Bowerbankii, to give up one or perhaps both
of the links in the chain between Ammonites and Scaphites. Until we know the