THE ANNALS 



MAGAZINE OF NATUEAL HISTOEY, 



[FIFTH SERIES.] 



No. 80. AUGUST 1884, 



IX. — Notes on Species o/'Ascodictyon and Rliopalonariayv-oyu 

 the Wenlock Shales. By George Robert Vine. 



In the ' Annals and Magazine of Natural History ' for June 

 1877, Prof. H. Alleyne Nicholson and Robert Etheridge, jun., 

 published their joint paper on ^^ Ascodictyon, a uqw Provi- 

 sional and Anomalous Genus of Paleozoic Fossils." In that 

 paper (pp. 463-468) the authors describe forms from the 

 Devonian (Middle, of Ontario) and Carboniferous strata (of 

 Scotland). In a paper read before the Geological Society and 

 ultimately published in their journal (" Notes on the Polyzoa 

 of Wenlock Shales," Feb. 1882), I placed upon record 

 (p. 54) the name Ascodictyon Jiliforme, Vine, as a provi- 

 sional one. Since the publication of that paper I have been 

 closely engaged on the study of Silurian and Carboniferous 

 Ascodictya^ and I find that the forms that I originally placed 

 under the above name may conveniently remain. The or- 

 ganism, however, is such a peculiar one, and my opportunities 

 of studying its varied aspects so singularly fortunate from the 

 possession of a large series of specimens, that I make no 

 apology for adding further details of the species to the brief 

 notice already referred to. 



The genus Ascodictyon is Palaeozoic, though not peculiarly 

 Ann. & May. N. Hist. Ser. 5. Vol xiv. 7 



