Prof. W. King on Spirifer cuspidatus. 15 
M‘Coy, in his description of the genus Spiréfer, having in- 
vested the perforated or “receiving valve with an ¢nternal 
pseudo-deltidium ”’* (an expression not very clear), it is some- 
what uncertain that such is the correct view. 
Professor de Koninck was the next to discover the process, 
having in 1859 described it as occurring in Spirifer distans, 
Sowerby, a species closely allied to Sp. cuspidatus. I have 
succeeded in exposing a section of it, represented in fig. 10, 
as disclosed in a specimen collected by myself some years ago, 
near Derrybrian, about twenty miles south-east of Galway, 
where it characterizes the Lower Carboniferous shales. The 
process corresponds with that represented by De Koninck, and 
more fully illustrated in Davidson’s precited communication, 
in having a projecting canal or ‘ ¢ncomplete tube” along the 
median line of the back of the “ transverse septum.” 
I must now dwell more particularly on the last-mentioned 
feature. Prof. Winchell described it, in 1863}, as occurring 
in an American form which I consider to be identical with 
Spirifer cuspidatus, also in Sp. granulifer. Whether he was 
the first to detect the transverse septum may be considered 
uncertain, seeing that Deshayes and M‘Coy have noticed some- 
thing which may be the same; but this appears certain: he 
was the first to determine the existence of the ‘incomplete 
tube.” Winchell, believing the shell (the first one above 
alluded to) to be an undescribed species, and generically dif- 
ferentiated from all others in being furnished with a peculiar 
apophysary system, was induced to regard it as the type of a 
new genus: hence his name Syringothyris typa. 
In 1865 Mr. Meek extended the discoveries of Prof. Winchell 
by finding the appendage in other American shells allied to 
Sp. cuspidatus, also in specimens of this species from Millicent. 
Prof. James Hall has observed it in some others. In his 
fourth volume of the ‘ Paleontology of New York,’ lately 
published, he mentions that Spirifer altus has the septum but 
not the tube, and that in Sp. textus both parts occur asso- 
ciated as in Sp. cuspidatus§. 
The discoveries by Dr. Carpenter, already mentioned, are 
the latest that have appeared in connexion with the subject. 
I may now proceed to give an account of my own investi- 
gations. 
* Brit. Pal. Foss. p. 191. 
+ Mém. de la Soc. Roy. des Se. de Liége, 1859. 
t Proc. Acad. Nat. Sc. Philadelphia, January 1865. 
§ I have derived this information from extracts, taken from Professor 
J. Hall’s new volume, in Mr, Davidson’s recent article in the ‘ Geological 
Magazine,’ July 1867, 
