4. On the Preservation of Foot-prints on the Sea Shore

Extract

The author remarked, that the impressions of the feet of birds and molluscs on wet sand, were liable to be effaced by the return of the tide; and that their preservation was owing to dry sand blown into the depressions from the shore, and again covered by a layer of moist sand or mud by the return of the tide. In regard to tracks left by gasteropodous molluscs, he stated that great caution was necessary to distinguish them from those left by Nereids; and instanced the case of a foot-track of a common whelk resembling the marks made by the Crossopodia on the Silurian slates. When the track of the whelk is filled up by the dry sand blown into the depression in the line of progress, no difficulty is felt in recognising it as the track of a gasteropod; but should the wind blow at right angles to the track of the mollusc, a series of setse-like markings will be observed to leeward, caused by the dry sand adhering to the moist.