6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 95 



CONASPIS Hall, 1863 



Conaspis Hall, i6th Ann. Rept. New York State Cab. Nat. Hist., p. 152, 1863. 

 Conaspis Walcott, Smithsonian Misc. Coll., vol. 57, no. 13, p. 357 (footnote), 



1914. 

 Macrotoxiis Lorenz (part), 1906, Zeitschr. Deutsch. Geol. Gesell., bd. 58, p. 61. 



Hall stated, " Should the species possessing these features be found 

 to require separation from Conocephalites, I would propose the name 

 Conaspis." Thus was the genus Conaspis established, and no further 

 study has been given it except the brief diagnosis in the footnote 

 given by Walcott. However, both authors had a group of genera in 

 mind, and hence their diagnoses are quite general. 



As pointed out by Walcott, Lorenz referred two species to his genus 

 Macrotoxiis, one being Anomocare angelini Gronwall and the other 

 Conocephalites perseus Hall. The latter was stated to be from the 

 Mount Stephen fossil bed in British Columbia, hence it is not clear 

 whether he was considering Hall's Upper Cambrian C. perseus and 

 merely made an error in recording the locality or whether a Middle 

 Cambrian trilobite from Canada was in mind. It is possible that 

 Lorenz had knowledge of specimens of Elrathina cordillerae that 

 Matthew had identified as C. perseus. Furthermore, Anomocare 

 angelini does not even belong to the same trilobite family as C. perseus 

 and will receive the name Macrotoxus if it should prove to be dis- 

 tinct from Anomocare; otherwise Macrotoxiis becomes a synonym 

 of Anomocare and not of Conaspis as stated by Walcott. 



Walcott chose Conocephalites perseus, the species first on Hall's 

 list as the genotype. Unfortunately, Hall's figure of C. perseus is 

 inaccurately drawn and the type locality is lost owing to the discon- 

 tinuance of the postoffice then known as Kickapoo, but as Hall's types 

 are in the American Museum of Natural History, no questions as to 

 the generic features remain. 



Diagnosis. — Cephalon, excluding the posterolateral limbs, roughly 

 rectangular. Eyes situated at about midlength, with the facial suture 

 diverging slightly anterior to them, and intramarginal almost or alto- 

 gether to the center. Posterior facial suture diverging rapidly, form- 

 ing triangular posterolateral limbs. Dorsal furrows converge slightly 

 and join across the front of the glabella in a rather straight line. 

 Two or three pairs of glabellar furrows lightly impressed, the rear 

 pair joining in the middle along a horizontal course. Palpebral lobes 

 rather small and strongly bowed. Brim with a width about a third of 

 the length of the cephalon. Rim defined by a sharp but shallow furrow, 

 thickened, tapering laterally because of the intramarginal course of 

 the suture. 



