260 Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



NOTE UPON THE HABITS OF SOME FOSSIL ANNE- 

 LIDS. 



By S. A. Miller, Esq. 



Collectors of any considerable experience, in the rocks at Cincinnati, 

 have not failed to observe that some of the shells, and many of the 

 corals, are pierced by numerous holes, as if eaten through by some 

 burrowing animal. My attention was attracted to this subject several 

 3^ears ago, and I have spent no small amount of time in endeavoring to 

 solve the mystery, but I had not the slightest conception of the animal 

 that did the work, until last year, when I collected the specimens that 

 enabled me to positively determine the architect. The work done by 

 palaeontologists, in Silurian strata, is confined almost exclusively to 

 the morphological characters of the species, and it is rare, indeed, 

 that one is able to determine the habits of the animals themselves. 

 Hence, this discover}^ may be regarded as of some palfeontological im- 

 portance. 



During the past summer and fall I collected a great many corals, 

 preserving within these holes, the small, annulated, conical, flexuous 

 tubes, which were called, b\' Nicholson, Ortonia minor. The speci- 

 mens show the meandering courses of the little animals through the 

 corals, sometimes cutting the corallites transversel}', and at other times 

 longitudinally, and retain within the holes the shells of this species. 

 It IS most usual to find the mouth of the shell on or near a level with 

 the polyp cells, but it is found in all other positions in the holes. No 

 doubt can be entertained that this animal bored its way through the 

 coral, and it only remains to determine whether its food was the polyp 

 or the dead calcareous matter. The evidence tends to show that its 

 food was the coral, and not the polyp, but we must delay ofi"ering this 

 evidence until another opportunity, 



I have elsewhere shown that Ortonia is a synon3'm for Conchicolites, 

 and as the habits now ascertained evidently remove this species from 

 the latter genus, and also from the order Tubicola, we must look else- 

 where to find a home in which to classify it. 



A re-investigation of all the fossils of Silurian strata, which have 

 been referred to the genera Tentacujites, Cornulites and Conchicolites.^ 

 founded upon additional testimony, must be granted before we shall 

 be able to separate the burrowing from the non-burrowing, or to have 

 any clear ideas of their habits and affinities. 



