NOTES ON THE SYNONYMY, CHARACTERS AND DISTRIBUTION OF 

 SPIRIFERA PARRYANA, HALL. 



Bj- S. CALVIN. 



We have only two large spirifers that occur in sufficient 

 numbers to be at all conspicuous in the Devonian fauna of 

 Iowa, and these are Spirifera pennata, Owen, {Spiri/era 

 «/zy«/gr«;/rz, S. A. Miller,) and Sfiriferaparryana. Both of 

 these species were known to Owen as early as 1848 or 1849 

 and both are figured and described in his report on the 

 Geological Survey of Wisconsin Iowa and Minnesota, 

 published in 1852. Owen, it is true, figured and described S. 

 parryana under the impression that the Iowa spirifer was 

 identical with S. euruteines, and so it is under this name that 

 the species appears in his report. 



Spirifera euruteines is a species that was early recognized 

 and named by Owen. It seems that a figure of it was given 

 in his report for 1839, published probably in 1844. The 

 species which American paleontologists now universally 

 recognize as Owen's S. euruteines^ and the species certainly of 

 which he distributed authenticated examples with the above 

 name attached, as early as 1841, is a w'ell marked form 

 occuring in Devonian limestones near the Falls of the Ohio. 

 In the light of present knowledge, S. euriUeines is certainly 

 very distinct from any species found in the Devonian strata of 

 Iowa. While therefore our Iowa species is undoubtedly the 

 S. euruteines^ Owen, 1852, we are compelled to conclude that 

 it is not S. euruteines^ Owen, 1839-1844. Owen's mistake as 

 to the identity of the Iowa species left it for a time, even after 

 it had been figured and described, without appropriate specific 

 designation. It remained in this condition until 1858, when 

 Hall, in his report on the Geology of Iowa, described and 

 figured a small individual of not quite average proportions, 

 under the name Spirifer parryamis. The specimen de- 

 scribed is from the limestones near Buffalo in Scott county, 



