344 Mr. J. Lycett on Trichites, 
in his ‘Catalogue of English Fossils,’ 1725, part 2. p. 101, 102, 
‘De testis aliisque incerti generis,’ mentions that Lhwyd sent a 
specimen of this genus from the Oolite of Bullmgton Green near 
Oxford, with the title “ Trichites Plottii, Hist. Oxon. Veneris crimes 
forsan Plinio,” and adds the caustie remark, that these two writers, 
Dr. Plott of mere simplicity, and Lhwyd of design, “ darken 
counsel by words without knowledge,” Job. xxxvit. 2; he also 
records fragments in his collection from Risington and Birdlip 
Hill in Gloucestershire. The generic name was of course de- 
rived from its capillary or hair-like structure. Far from joming 
in the foregoing censure, we are rather disposed to respect the 
discrimination which recognized this obseure generic form in the 
earliest infancy of conchology. It was observed by Saussure in 
the Coralline Oolite of Mount Saléve near Geneva, and described 
by Deluc in the first volume of the great work of Saussure on 
the Alps, p. 192, and figured in part 2. fig. 5, 6. This eminent 
naturalist ascertained some of the general features of the genus ; 
the great thickness of the test, its fibrous structure, analogous, he 
observed, to that of Pinna, and its inequivalve form ; this latter 
character, he observed, compelled a generie separation, and he 
proposed to call it Pixnegene. Deluc seems to have been unac- 
quainted with the prior claim of Lhwyd. Guettard and De- 
france observed it in the oolitic rocks of Normandy; they re- 
garded it as a distinct genus, but do not appear to have con- 
tributed anything material to its elucidation. 'The latter author’s 
views are contained in an article contributed by him to the ‘Dic- 
tionnaire des Sciences Naturelles,’ tom. lv. 1828. 
Deshayes, in his last edition of Lamarck’s Conchology, does 
not recognize its generic value, but describes Deluc’s species 
(tom. vii. p.-68) under the designation Pina Saussurei; the 
materials at his disposal seem to have been very imperfect, and 
in consequence his description is incomplete and calculated to 
give an erroneous idea of its characteristic features. The term 
‘ subsequivalvis ’ for instance does not accord with Deluc’s figures ; 
it is stated to gape posteriorly, which, judging from our speci- 
mens, must be an error ; the character of the terminal extremity 
and interior of the hinge-line are not mentioned. The only other 
recent notice of the genus which we have discovered is contained 
in the volume of Dr. Pictet, which is devoted to fossil concho- 
logy, where the figures of Deluc ave copied on a reduced scale, 
but no additional information is given. From the absence of all 
notice of the genus by the leading systematic writers on concho- 
logy, it may be concluded that they did not recognize the di- 
stinction of Deluc’s shell from Pinna, or having no personal 
knowledge of the form, they hesitated to allow it a place with 
recognized genera. It has therefore hitherto existed almost on 
