Dr. W. B. Carpenter on Spirifer cuspidatus. 139 
myself unable to discover. But however “ strange” it may 
seem to Prof. King, I re-affirm, as a simple fact of observation, 
capable of being at once verified by any competent and un- 
prejudiced microscopist, that not only do my preparations of 
this shell show “ not the smallest trace of perforations,” but 
they exhibit a continuity of shell-structure where the per- 
forations ought (in Prof. King’s idea) to be seen, which is not 
surpassed in distinctness by that of a recent Rhynchonella*. 
No metamorphism could produce shell-structure where none 
previously existed. 
For anything I know to the contrary, however, Prof. King 
may still hold to the conclusion which he expressed with 
as little hesitation some twenty years agot, not only that 
Spiriferide, but that Rhynchonelle (or Hypothyrises, as he 
then designated them) are perforated. For although he has 
been repeatedly challenged, both publicly and privately, either 
to justify or to retract that statement (which, to use plain 
English, gave the lie to the figures and descriptions I had 
published four years previously), he has never, so far as I am 
aware, explicitly done either the one or the other. 
Now, as there cannot be any common basis of discussion 
between Prof. King and myself, so long as he ‘‘ doubts the 
absence of perforations in any Brachiopod whatever,” and as 
he appears at last to have made himself acquainted with the 
shell-structure of the recent Rhynchonella psittacea, to which I 
long since directed his attention as affording conclusive evi- 
dence on this point, I think that the scientific world has a 
right to know his present opinions on the following ques- 
tions :— 
1. Do any traces of perforations exist in the shells of the 
recent Rhynchonella psittacea and Rh. nigricans ? 
* Compare my representations of the minute structure of the shell of 
Rhynchonella psittacea in ‘ Reports of the British Association’ for 1844, 
figs. 27-30, or in my Introduction to Mr. Davidson’s Monograph, plate 5. 
figs. 4, 5, with the representations of the structure of the perforated Tere- 
bratulide given in figs. 34-36 of the same ‘ Reports,’ or in pl. 4. figs. 6, 7 
of the ‘Introduction.’ It is needless to repeat figures so well known. 
+ “Dr. Carpenter places Hypothyrises in his non-perforated division of 
the Brachiopods ; but punctures, though much more minute than those 
in Terebratulide, occur in every species that has passed under my ob- 
servation. Punctures also occur in Productide and Spiriferide ; in short, 
I doubt their absence in any Brachiopod whatever.” (Permian Fossils, 
. 110, note.) 
Pa But unfortunately for Dr. Carpenter’s observation and Dr. de Koninck’s 
conclusion [as to the imperforateness of the Paleeozoic Spirifers], I have 
seen punctures in species of every genus of Spiriferids, so that [ am led 
to conclude a punctated structure characterized the entire family.” (Op. 
cit, p. 124.) 
