118 WHITBAVES ON CRETACEOUS AMMONITES 



Three species of Hoplites, are now knowu to occur in the Cretaceous rocks of Canada, 

 and each of these belongs to a different section of the genus. Two of them are described 

 for the first time in the present paper, and the third is Hoplites Vancouverensis, the Ammo- 

 nites Vancouverensis of Meek, from the Later Cretaceous of Vancouver Island, which was 

 at one time (1876) doubtfully referred by Meek to his own geiius Placenticerns. 



Hoplites Canadensis. (Sp. nov.) 

 Plate XL, figs. 3, 3 a, 4 and 5. 



Shell discoidal, compressed at the sides and flattened on the periphery, the outer 

 volution being almost rectangular in transverse section : umbilicus occupying not much 

 more than one-fourth of the total diameter and exposing only a small portion of each of 

 the inner volutions, but with a rouuded and very indefinite margin : aperture subquad- 

 rangular, with the dorso-ventral diameter a little greater than the lateral, and dis- 

 tinctly but rather shallowly emarginate posteriorly by the encroachment of the preceding 

 volution. 



Surface marked with prominent, narrow and rather distant, radiating ribs, which 

 bifurcate at the umbilical margin, with a shorter aud simple rib occasionally intercalated 

 between two of the larger ones. All the ribs pass continuously over the periphery, and 

 the intervals between them are rather broad and slightly concave. 



Suturai line consisting of three principal lateral saddles and two lateral lobes on 

 each side of the siphonal saddle and lobe, besides a few small accessory lobes and saddles 

 in the umbilical cavity. Siphonal saddle very short, its summit minutely trilobed, with 

 the central lobule the shortest : first, second and third lateral saddles nearly equal in 

 height, but dissimilar and unequal in breadth, the first and third being broader than the 

 second, and all three narrowly and deeply lobed and incised rather than branched. 

 Siphonal lobe not much shorter than the first lateral lobe, the former symmetrical and 

 bearing four nearly simple divergent spurs or offsets on each side, though the margins of 

 the two upper and longer pairs of spurs are distinctly incised : first lateral lobe not much 

 higher than the siphonal lobe, but unsymmetrical, its summit being unequally but not 

 very deeply bipartite : second lateral lobe much narrower and shorter than the first, with 

 its margin simply incised, but neither lobed nor branched. 



Clearwater Shales of the Athabasca River, at the lîurnt Rapids, Dr. R. Bell, 1882, 

 and Mr. R. G. McConnell, 1890, where one imperfect and not very well preserved spe- 

 cimen was obtained by each of these geologists. Peace River Sandstones on the Peace 

 River, at exposures five, six, ten and twenty miles below Cadotte's River, R. G. McConnell, 

 1889 : a few well preserved and nearly perfect specimens from each of these localities. 

 Loon River Shales on the Loon River, opposite Buffalo Head Hills, also ten and thirty 

 miles above its mouth, where a few rather badly preserved specimens were collected by 

 Mr. McConnell in 1889. 



All the specimens are little more than casts of the interior of the shell, but many of- 

 these are almost or quite covered with the more or less exfoliated inner or nacreous layer 

 of the test. The largest specimen (figs. 3 and 3 a), from the Peace River ten miles below 

 Cadotte's River, in which most of the sutures are thus covered, is about two inches and 



