140 Dr. W. B. Carpenter on Splrifer ciispidatus. 



2. Is there any reason for supposing that these shells have 

 ever been perforated ? 



3. Do any traces of perforations exist in the fossil Rhyncho- 

 nellce generally ? (Of course I do not expect Prof. King to 

 surrender Rhynchopora Geinitziana ; but I speak of such types 

 as Rh. acutay octoplicata^ and rostrata.) 



4. Is there any reason for supposing that these shells have 

 ever been perforated ? 



If Prof. King does not yet feel himself able to give that 

 direct and explicit negative to these questions, in which I 

 have reason to believe that all other brachiopodists are agreed, 

 it is to be hoped that he will feel it due to science to justify 

 his affirmative conclusion by publishing the evidence on which 

 it rests. If, on the other hand, he is now prepared to admit 

 that which he formerly so unhesitatingly denied, I have fur- 

 ther to ask : — 



5. What appearances are presented by Mr. Davidson's spe- 

 cimen of Spirifer cusjpidatus which place it in a different 

 category from the foregoing as regards the supposed existence 

 of perforations ? 



When Prof. King shall have given a plain answer to these 

 questions, those who are interested in this subject will be able 

 to judge for themselves whether the invisible perforations 

 which he sees with his mind's eye in Mr. Davidson's specimen 

 of Spirifer cuspidatus* are anything else than a delusion of 

 that too vivid imagination which, twenty years ago, led him 

 to assert their existence in RhynchonelUe and Spiriferidce 

 generally, and to doubt their absence in any Brachiopod 

 whatever. And it will then be quite time enough to inquire 

 into the validity of Prof. King's observations upon Prof. Hark- 

 ness's and other specimens, detailed in his last paper. 



I may add that I possess sections of two Devonian species 

 {Sp. speciosus and Sp. Verneuilli) in which the continuity of 

 imperforate shell-structure is, if possible, even more distinct 

 than in Mr. Davidson's specimen, in consequence of the entire 

 absence of metamorphic change. These and any other of my 



* I rest the whole case of the imperforation of Spirifer cuspidatus upon 

 this specimen, for two reasons, — first, that it has the best-preserved shell 

 I have ever met with in a Carboniferous-limestone fossil ; and, secondly, 

 because Prof. King has examined this very specimen, so that there can be 

 no question about the appearances which its structure presents. But 

 the most careful examination of those appearances has only confirmed the 

 statement I originally made, when the question was simply one of observa- 

 tion, not involving any " strange morphological theory —that, " although 

 the structure of this shell is often obscured by metamorphic action, I 

 possess sections in which it is extremely well preserved, and in which 

 there is an evident absence of the perforations." (Rep. Brit. Assoc. 1844.) 



