172 iiEPOKT— 1881. 



Mr. Longe, of Cheltenham. In the Devonian collection of Poly zoa, at the 

 School of Mines, a species marked Berenicea M'Goyii, Salter, Middle 

 Devonian, Padstow, bears a very close resemblance to this Silurian type. 

 Unfortunately the Devonian specimen is very poorly preserved, but I 

 can trace in the zoarium a svifficient number of cells to afford me some 

 idea of the general character. The specimen in Mr. Longe's cabinet I 

 have carefully studied, and I now give a description with very accurate 

 measurements. 



Zoaria encrusting by a single layer a fragment of coral. Zomcia 

 tubular, rather regular, in series. As sevei'al colonies are found upon the 

 same coral, a remarkably irregular character is given to the associated 

 'Maria. For the j^urpose of this diagnosis I isolate a single colony. Cell- 

 mouths circular, with a well- formed peristome, and slightly less than the 

 diameter of the tubes. Six zooecia occupy the space of a line measured 

 across the mouths of the cells, and two and half, to three, lengthwise in 

 the same space.' 



The habit of Lonsdale's species in the School of Mines, and also 

 Salter's Devonian Berenicea, is that of the ordinary Diastopora. The 

 habit of the species here described, and also the measurements, correspond 

 with Nicholson's Alecto confusa. If these be true Diastopora — for I 

 cannot ignore the existence of D. consimilis and Berenicea APGoyii — we 

 have a true tubular Diastopora carried backward in time to the Wenlock 

 Limestone ; consequently the Berenicea which I left provisionally with 

 the Diastoporidce^^ will be displaced by undoubted tubular species. The 

 measurement of Alecto confusa, Nich., is five cells to the line, measured 

 across the mouth.^ This is slightly less than my own, and may be 

 accounted for by the more compact arrangement of the cells in the Dudley 

 specimen. 



1826. Geriopora, Goldfuss. 



Several species of this genus are given as Upper Silurian by authors, 



Ceriopora affinis, Goldfuss. 



,, granulosa, ,, 



„ punctata, ,, 



and Nicholson in his New Devonian Fossils adds Ger'iopova ? Samiltonensis, 

 of which he says, ' This beautiful little fossil (about five cells occupy the 

 space of a line vertically) occurs in great abundance in some of the beds 

 of the Hamilton Formation. It is allied to G. ijunctata. Gold., and 

 Millepora interporosa, Phill. (' Geo. of Tork.') I am at present un- 

 able to decide as to its true generic affinities, and have simply referred it 

 provisionally to Ceriopora.' I will also leave it and the other species 

 alone for the present. The whole of the Gerioporidce will have to be re- 

 vised, and species from the Silurian to the Crag will have to be re- worked. 



1821. Spiropora, Lamx. 

 In some of the shale- washings supplied to me by Mr. Maw from strata 

 below the Wenlock Limestone, I have come across many beautiful frag- 



• This was written in December, 1880, a copy of which was furnished shortly 

 after to Mr. Longe, for his correction and approval for publication in tliis Report, as 

 Alecto confusa, Nicholson ? var. regularis. I have seen since that a paper has been 

 read by him on Biastopora, at the Geological Society, May, 1881. I have no desire to 

 press my own name in preference to his, seeing tliat I wrote my description previously 

 to the examination of Lonsdale's and M'Coy's Silurian and Devonian species in the 

 School of Mines. 



- Review of the Fam. Diastoporidfe, Quart. Jour. Geo. Sac, Aug. 1880, 

 ^ Nicholson does not say this, but I infer it from his remarks. 



