Among the chalk amorphozoa whose true affinities are doubtful, is a small turbinated zoophyte, which I would place provisionally under this genus; it has a shallow central cavity, with a broad smooth margin, a reticulated external surface, and radicle processes proceeding from the base; see [Lign. 80, fig. 1].
PARAMOUDRA.
Paramoudra. [Lign. 76.]—This vernacular Irish term was introduced by Dr. Buckland, in his account of some gigantic flints, thus popularly named, that occur in the chalk near Belfast, and also at Whitlingham, near Norwich. These fossils are of an irregular, oblong, spherical, or pyriform shape, having a cavity above, which, in some specimens, extends to the bottom; indications of a pedicle are seen at the base; in short, they closely resemble, upon a large scale, the funnel-shaped spongites, so frequent in the flints of the South Downs. Their appearance in situ, is represented [Lign. 76], from Dr. Buckland's illustrations: b, is a single specimen, partly imbedded in the chalk, and c, d, two of the fossils in contact, the pedicle of the upper one lying in the cavity of the lower.
These bodies are from one to two or more feet in length, and from six inches to a foot in diameter. The appearance, both of the outer and inner surface, is that of the usual white calcareo-siliceous crust of spongitic chalk-flints. Upon breaking them, no decided structure is perceptible; but here and there, patches of red and blue chalcedony occur, as in the Ventriculites and spongites in chalk-flints; the originals were probably large goblet-shaped zoophytes, allied to the sponges, but of so perishable a nature as to leave but few traces of their organization, save their general form. Specimens may however yet be found with the structure preserved, for many years elapsed after the first discovery of flint ventriculites, before I obtained examples that threw light on their origin and formation.
Lign. 76. "Paramoudra;" seen in a vertical section of a Chalk-pit, near Moira.
(The Very Rev. Dr. Buckland. Geol. Trans, vol. iv.)
| a, a, a. | Layers of flint nodules, alternating with chalk strata, |
| b. | A Paramoudra, imbedded in the chalk, |
| c, d. | Two of these bodies in contact. |
In the Devonian slates of Polperro some curious fossils, supposed to be remains of fishes, have been ascertained by Prof McCoy to be Amorphozoa, and are described by that eminent palæontologist under the name of Steganodictyum.[215]