170 Mr. L. Reeve on the History, Synonymy, and 



extremely variable in structure, it affords excellent characters to 

 the conchologist for the distinction of groups. 



The Terebratula are chiefly deep-dwelling Brachiopods ; and 

 from the little trouble devoted to dredging them from their native 

 haunts, the varieties of the apophysial skeleton were not until 

 lately known. The dredgings of M. Gaudichaud, M. D'Or- 

 bigny, MM. Quoy and Gaimard, Capt, King, Mr. Cuming, 

 Capt. Belcher, Professor Forbes, Mr. MacAndrew, Mr. Barlee, 

 and others, have furnished specimens with internal skeletons, 

 coupled with valuable bathymetrical observations ; and the dif- 

 ferent forms of apophysis, and corresponding development of 

 the arms, have been well observed by M. D'Orbigny, Mr. David- 

 son, Mr. Woodward, and Mr. King. Excellent systematic cata- 

 logues of both recent and fossil species have been published by 

 Mr. Davidson, and by Dr. Gray, assisted by Mr. Woodward, in 

 which the different forms of apophysis are employed as the 

 grounds of subdivision ; and the geographical' distribution of 

 the species in space, in depth, and in time has been worked out 

 with much ingenuity by Professor Suess. One thing appeared 

 to me to be wanting — a more extended comparison and verifi- 

 cation of the recent species. No generalizations on geographical 

 distribution can be relied upon, unless the recorded specific ex- 

 istence and habitat of the subjects are well authenticated. Prof. 

 Suess's dissertation on the geographical distribution of the Bra- 

 chiopods is a most able work, but bears evidence of his not having 

 sufficiently tested the species. The very characteristic subgenus 

 Argiope, for example, has its home in the Mediterranean ; the 

 Mediterranean is undoubtedly its southern limit; but Dr. 

 Suess gives New Zealand as a habitat *, on the ground that an 

 obscure specimen in the Paris Museum, which Mr. Davidson 

 somewhat too precipitately described (as he has himself gene- 

 rously acknowledged to me) as a new subgenus with the name of 

 Waltonia Valenciennesii, is an Argiope. This shell is identical 

 with a species, now well enough known, described subsequently 

 by Mr. Davidson with the name Terehratella Evansii. Dr. Gray 

 places it under Magns, and I incline to concur with this view ; 

 but with Argiope the species has no relation whatever ; and Pro- 

 fessor Suess might have detected this, even without any exami- 

 nation of the specimen, from Mr. Davidson's excellent figures of 

 it. Again, Professor Suess gives Terehratella as one of the types 

 of the South African province of geographical distribution; 

 but this conclusion is drawn from a statement that a shell in 

 the British Museum, named by Sowerby T. Algoensis, from 

 Algoa Bay, is a Terehratella. (Jpon examining this shell, I 



* " Die fiinfte und letzte Art dieser kleinen Sippe ist in Neii-Seeland zu 

 Hause." — Wohns. der Brach. p. 34. 



