The Geologist/Volume 5/Notes and Queries, Fossil Cocoons of Leeches

Fossil Cocoons of Leeches.—Dr. Gergens, of Mayence, has lately suggested that the so-called fossil eggs of snakes, found in some of the freshwater deposits of Germany, may be fossil cocoons of leeches (N. Jahrb. 1861, p. 670). Under these circumstances it maybe worth while for those who possess specimens of the egg-like bodies found in the freshwater strata of the Isle of Wight (and which have been thought to be either coprolitic or the eggs of Bulimus, or of freshwater tortoises), to re-examine them, and compare them with the sponge-like oval cocoon of the common leech. Mr. F. E. Edwards figures several of these oviform bodies in his Monograph on the Eocene Gasteropods, published by the Palæontographical Society.—Hirudo.