14 THE CARBONIFEROUS. 



Conularia planicostata, Dawson. 

 Aviculopecten Debertianus^ Dawson. 

 Bdkevellia antiqua, Munst. 

 Cypricardia, sp. 

 Terebratula sacculus, Martin. 

 Spirifera glabra, Martin. 

 Productus semireticulatus, Martin. 

 P. Cora, D'Orbigny. 

 Streptorhynclius crenistria, Phillips. 



In 1880 I undertook a revision of the Land Snails of the Carboni- 

 ferous, in order that Nova Scotia, which had taken the lead in this 

 matter, might retain its pre-eminence. The results were published in 

 the American Journal of Science, Nov. 1880, in which full descriptions 

 were given of Pupa Vetusta, Dii., Pupa Bigshyi, Dn., and Zonites 

 (Conulus) priscus. Carp., as well as of Pupa Vermilionensis, Bradley, 

 and Dawsonella Meeki, Bradley, discovered in the coal-field of Illinois ; 

 and a species from the Devonian plant beds of St John was added, 

 as probably a land shell under the name Strophites grandaeva. Should 

 this prove, when other specimens are found, to be really an air- 

 breathing mollusc, it will be the oldest known. This paper concludes 

 with the following remarks : — 



It may be proper to mention here the alleged Pulmonifera of the 

 genus Palceorbis described by some German naturalists. These I 

 believe to be worm-tubes of the genus Spirorhis, and in fact to be 

 nothing else than the common aS*. carbonarius or S. pusillus of the 

 coal-formation. The history of this error may be stated thus. The 

 eminent paleobotanists Germar, Goeppert, and Geinitz have referred 

 the Spirorbis, so common in the coal-measures, to the fungi, under the 

 name Gyromyces, and in this they have been followed by other 

 naturalists, though as long ago as 1868 I had shown that this little 

 organism is not only a calcareous shell, attached by one side to 

 vegetable matters and shells of molluscs, but that it has the micro- 

 scopic structure characteristic of modern shells of this type.* More 

 recently Van Beneden, Csenius, and Goldenberg, perceiving that the 

 fossil is really a calcareous shell, but apparently unaware of the 

 observations made in this country by myself and Mr Lesquereux, 

 have held the Spirorbis to be a pulmonate mollusc allied to Pla?iorbis, 

 and have supposed that its presence on fossil plants is confirmatory 

 of this view, though the shells are attached by a flattened side to 

 these plants, and are also found attached to shells of bivalves of the 

 * Acadian Geology, 2nd edition, p. 205. 



