172 DISTRIBUTlOxN'. 



I am iinahlc, however, to participate in this view. Through the kindness of Mr. Carruthers, 

 of the British jMiiseum, I have been enabled to examine numerous specimens of Cori/noides, and 

 in none can I find evidence sufficiently clear to lead me to believe in their hydroid affinities. 

 Dr. Nicholson is probably right in regarding them as originally consisting of a corneous (or rather 

 chitinous) material, while they may also have been tubular, though we are without any of that 

 evidence of their tubular conformation which we find so com])letc in the graptolites. If their 

 affinities be with the tubularian hydroids, the wide end cannot represent a hydrotheca, as supposed 

 by Dr. Nicholson, while under no circumstances can they have as their representative Corymorpha, 

 which is entirely destitute of a proper chitinous perisarc. If the wide end represents a distal 

 dilatation of the pcrisnrcal tube, then the processes from it are without parallel in any known 

 hydroid ; while if the narrow pointed end be the distal one, there could have been no liydranth 

 developed in them. 



Dr. Nicholson's discovery of Conjnoides forms an interesting contribution to the palaeon- 

 tology of the Silurian Rocks; its relation with the Hydroida may be possible, but other charac- 

 ters than those as 3'ct detected in these little, flattened, wedge-shaped bodies are needed before we 

 can assign to them, with any probability, hydroid affinities. 



MM. Duncan and Jenkins have given us a very interesting memoir on a remarkable little 

 organism from the lower shales of the Carboniferous Limestone of Scotland.' The authors name 

 it Palceocorpie, and regard it as a tubularian hydroid. 



It consists of a little calcareous cylindrical column, about one tenth of an inch in height, 

 attached by a dactylose base, and surmounted by an expansion in the form of a reversed cone, 

 the margin of whose wide end is extended into several radiating arms, which, like the rest of the 

 fossil, are entirely calcareous. Roth column and arms are beautifully ornamented by flutings and 

 regularly disposed puncta. 



The arms are tubular, and open into the summit of the column, which is also traversed by 

 an axial cavity, while the base, with its root-like prolongations, presents, on section, an irregularly 

 chambered structure. 



Two species of P«/rt>ofo;y«e are described by the authors, and from their very clear description 

 and the excellent figures which accompany it, there is no difficulty in arriving at an adecpiate 

 conception of the form and essential points of structure of these singular fossils. I regret, how- 

 ever, my inabiUty to recognise the hydroid affinities of Palaocorync. The completely calcified 

 condition of the entire fossil — both base, stem, and arms — and the certainty that it could never 

 have been otherwise, the peculiar ornamentation of its surface, and the chambered structure of 

 its base, are all directly opposed to its alleged relation with the Hydroida. 'J'he authors of the 

 memoir believe that they can find in the living tubularian genus B'rineria features which resemble 

 some of the most anomalous of the characters oiPalceocoryve. They see, especially in the extension 

 of the perisarc over a part of the tentacles and hypostome of Buneria a condition which has its 

 parallel in the calcareous arms (" tentacles") and summit of the cohunn in the fossil. Rut this partial 

 investment of tlie tentacles and hypostome in Bimeria is flexible and chitinous, and a consider- 

 able portion of the tentacle remains quite free from it, while in PaltEocoryne the thick calcareous 

 walls of the radiating arms are all but closed at their distal extremity, where they exhibit at most 



' ?. INIiirtiii Dimcaii and II. ^M. Jenkins, "On Puhrocoryne, a Genus of Tubulaiine Hydrozoa 

 from tlie Carboniferous rorniation," 'Phil. Trans.,' 18G9, p. 093, ]i\. \\\\. 



