316 PALEONTOLOGY OF NEW YORK. 



HiPPURiTES and Radiolites, have been carefully elaborated by Waagen, who 

 arrives at the conclusion that they are of brachiopodous nature, the normal 

 brachiopod characters being somewhat obscured by their mode of growth. 

 From the accompanying figures, taken from Waagen's illustration of the genus, 

 it appears that the valves when well preserved show a distinct hinge-line, faint 

 articulating processes and muscular impressions, all more similar to the corre- 

 sponding structures in the brachiopods, than to anything occurring among the 

 corals or Rudista. If this evidence of the brachiopodous nature of these fossils 

 prove convincing, the remarkable development of the cellular testaceous tissue 

 of the pedicle-valve which produces the striking external resemblance to a 

 coral, is certainly a no more extreme deviation from the brachiopod-type than 

 are such bodies as Hippurites, Caprotina, Radiolites, etc., from the type of 

 lamellibranchiate structure. The shells were evidently attached by solid 

 fixation at the apex of the pedicle-valve, and this attachment strengthened by 

 the epithecal rootlets extending downward from the walls of the valve, simi- 

 lar to those in Omphyma and other corals. 



In regard to the taxonomic position of Richthofenia, Waagen says: 



" To sum up all that has been said on the affinities of Richthofenia, we have 

 found that these shells most probably belong to the Brachiopoda, but that they 

 constitute so strong a group within this class, that though they may be 

 assignable to the Arthropomata, yet they can not be placed immediately in 

 the vicinity of any known group. They show on the one hand external affinities 

 to the corals, and on the other structural affinities to the Pelecypoda. This 

 conflicting evidence alone will justify my considering them at least as a proper 

 sub-order, for which I introduce the name of ' CoralliopsidaJ " 



Two species of this genus have been described, the Anomia Lawrmciana, de 

 Koninck, and R. Sinensis, Waagen. Both of them probably occur in the Car- 

 boniferous beds of the Salt-Range of India, but the latter is the form upon 

 which the genus was founded by Kayser, and was obtained from the upper 

 Carboniferous rocks of Lo-Ping, China. 



