TRANSACTIONS 



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THE LINNEAN SOCIETY. 



I. A Monograph of Recent BracJdopoda. — Part I. 

 By Thomas Davidson, LZ.B., F.E.S., F.L.S., F.G.S., Sfc. 



Eead 5th November, 1885. 



(Plates I.-XIII.) 



Introductory Remarks. 



DUEING the last hundred years the recent Brachiopoda have attracted considerable 

 attention, and a large number of valuable memoirs and papers have been published upon 

 them. Their shells, shell-structure, anatomy, embryology, and affinities have alike been 

 carefully investigated. Observations on the living animals of several genera have also 

 been recorded. The sea-bottoms have been dredged for Brachiopoda in many latitudes 

 and over a wide geographical area, and their habitats and ranges of depth accurately 

 ascertained to a very considerable extent. Pour or five incomplete monographs, in 

 which the shells only of a large number of species have been well illustrated and briefly 

 described, have appeared during the present century; but no satisfactory general 

 monograph ti'eating of the shell and animal conjointly has yet been published. This 

 omission I have now endeavoured to supply. 



In 1843, Klister, in his new edition of Chemnitz's ' Conchy lien-Cabinet,' described 

 some twenty-six or thirty species, of which several are now known to be synonyms. 

 These he figured in six quarto plates. 



In 1846, G. B. Sowerby, in his ' Thesaurus Conchyliorum,' described and beautifully 

 illustrated forty- seven species, of which number several are synonyms. 



In 1859-62, Lovell Eeeve, in his 'Conchyliorum Iconica,' described the shells of seventy- 

 hve species, of which some w^ere synonyms, accompanied with a series of beautiful 

 illustrations, drawn by G. B. Sowerby. 



In 1873, in the ' Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia,' 

 Mr. W. H. Dall published a catalogue of all the recent species of Brachiopoda known to 



SECOND series. — ZOOLOGY, VOL. IV, 1 



