

^V 



THE OTTAWA [(ATURALIST. 



Vol. XVII. OTTAWA, OCTOBER, 1903. No. 



NOTES ON SOME CANADIAN SPECIMENS OF 

 ' ' LITUITES UN DA TUS. ' ' 



J. F. Whiteaves. 



One oi the rarer fossils of the Black River limestone in the 

 Province of Quebec, is a spirally coiled cephalopodous shell that 

 was identified with Lituites undatus by E. Billing-s many years 

 ago, and that certainly corresponds very well with one of the 

 specimens that Professor James Hall has figured under that name. 

 Specimens ot this fossil, collected at the Falls of the St. Charles 

 River at Lorette, also on the Lac Ouareau River, north of Joliette, 

 by Sir W. E. Logan in 1852, and three miles west of Napierville, 

 south of Montreal, are still labelled with that name in the Museum 

 ot the Geological Survey. Most of these specimens are not more 

 than two inches in their greatest diameter. 



But it has long been suspected that Hall has unintentionally 

 included more than one species under the name Lituites undatus, 

 and it is obvious, from his figures, that none of these are referable 

 to Breyn's genus Lituites, as now understood. 



The following is a brief summary of the literature bearing on 

 this question : — 



1842. On page 394 of the " Report of the Geolog-y of the Second District of 

 New York", by Dr. Ebenezer Emmons, two fossils are rather 

 roughly figured under the name Inachus undatus. There is no detailed 

 description of this species, and all that is said of it is that "this 

 remarkable fossil is found at Watertown in the black limestone. It 

 is rare. Casts sometimes occur which are smooth." 



1847. In the first volume of the Palaeontology of New York, Hall described 

 some specimens from the same locality, which he evidently believed 

 to be conspecific with Emmons' species, under the name Lituites 

 undatus, and figures four of them on Plates XIII and XIII bis. Hall, 



