376 On Recent Mediterranean Species of Brachiopoda. 



I regret to add I could make out nothing certain or useful 

 relative to the fossil species described by our author. The 

 collection, it is true, contains a great number of fossil Brachio- 

 poda, which were, no doubt, obtained from the Tertiary, Cre- 

 taceous, and Jurassic rocks, which occur plentifully in the 

 neighbourhood of Nice, Italy, &c. ; but as no figures accom- 

 pany his scanty descriptions, and as the labels no longer exist 

 or else are unrecognizable, those so-termed species become 

 valueless for scientific purposes. 



During my sojourn at Nice, I endeavoured to ascertain from 

 Sig. Andrea Aradas, Professor at the University of Catania, 

 in Sicily, what his Terebratula Spada really was, since it had 

 been insufficiently figured by him in 1847 ; but not having 

 been favoured with a reply, and not having seen the shell 

 itself, the details here given must be regarded as provisional. 

 This shell in size and shape much resembles certain delicately 

 ribbed varieties of the Waldheimia flavescens, Lamarck, = 

 australis, Quoy, of which the present known habitat is South 

 Australia. Sig. Aradas mentions having found it only upon one 

 occasion in the Mediterranean*. Its loop is long and similar 

 to that of the species last named ; and it is worthy of notice 

 that no species or other specimen of Waldheimia has hitherto 

 been dredged from the Mediterranean by any of the many 

 naturalists that have searched that sea, the nearest spot being 

 Vigo Bay, where Mr. R. MacAndrew once dredged two 

 dwarfed specimens of Waldheimia cranium. I have since 

 been assured by Sig. Seguenza, of Messina, that Sig. Aradas's 

 specimen of W. Spada had been carefully examined by an 

 experienced conchologist, who had pronounced it to belong to 

 Waldheimia flavescens , and who does not believe it to be a 

 Mediterranean shell, in which assumption I completely concur. 



I now hasten to recognize Prof. O. G. Costa's priority of 

 publication with reference to his genus Platidia. The dis- 

 covery of the shell termed Orthis anomioides is due to Scacchi ; 

 but that of its internal organization and generic character 

 seems to have been made simultaneously and quite indepen- 

 dently by Prof. Costa and myself; and, indeed, it was only 

 recently that, having procured a copy of that gentleman's 

 work, ' Fauna del regno di Napoli,' I found out for the first 

 time I had been anticipated by three months and a few days 

 in the publication of my genus Morrisia, which is the same 

 as his Platidia. At page 47 of the work above named, pub- 



* Nel Mare di Aci-Trezza, near Sicily. 



