Reviews — Etheridge's Australian Archceocyuthince. 429 



Jurassic Foramimfera ; but have felt bound to call attention to such 

 unnecessary multiplication of specific names in a group already so 

 largely complicated by this faulty treatment. We do not now name 

 as new every slight variation of hair or feathers in the Vertebrata ; 

 and the surface-markings and shape of the Foraminifera are almost 

 exactly parallel in value. A brief abstract in French will be found 

 in the Bull. Ac. Sci. Cracovie, for February, 1890. C. D. S. 



V. — On some Australian Species of the Family Arcfleocya- 

 thin^. By R. Etheridge, jun., Palaeontologist to the Australian 

 Museum and Geological Survey of N. S. Wales. Transactions 

 of the Eoyal Society of South Australia, 1890, pp. 10-22, pis. 

 ii. iii. 



HITHERTO the fossils belonging to this family have only been 

 definitely known from the Cambrian strata of Labrador, New 

 York State, Nevada, Spain, and Sardinia, although some badly- 

 preserved specimens from supposed Devonian rocks of New South 

 Wales were referred many years since by Prof. De Koninck to the 

 genus Archceocyathus. These fossils have unfortunately since been 

 destroyed by fire, so that their real nature must remain undetermined ; 

 but if they were correctly referred to the above genus, the rocks 

 from whence they come are probably much older than the Devonian 

 period. That forms closely allied to Archceocyathus do, however, 

 occur in Australian rocks, is very conclusively shown in the present 

 paper, which contains descriptions of new species of Ethmophyllum, 

 Cosciuocyathus and Protopharetra, hardly to be distinguished from 

 the typical forms of these genera in the rocks of North America and 

 Sardinia. The Australian fossils are from limestone strata at 

 Ardrossan, Yorke's Peninsula, Kanyka, north-east of Porth Augusta, 

 and some other localities in the Flinders Range still further to the 

 north; — all in the colony of South Australia. The specimens are 

 for the most part imbedded in the hard rock, and can therefore only 

 be studied in sections ; not only in form but also in mineral structure 

 they show a close similarity to specimens from Sardinia and North 

 America, and this resemblance is not limited to the fossils merely, 

 but includes the matrix as well, so that hand-specimens of the 

 Arclueocyathus limestones from Yorke's Peninsula could scarcely be 

 separated from pieces of rock similarly filled with these organisms, 

 from the Labrador coast or from Sardinia. 



Owing to the way in which the fossils are preserved, it is very 

 difficult to ascertain specific details, and Mr. Etheridge has acted 

 wisely in not increasing the number of species on necessarily 

 imperfect data ; but it is probable, considering the great number of 

 specimens in the rock, that further forms will yet be made out. 

 The geological horizon of these Australian Archatocyathus limestones 

 — or at all events those from Yorke's Peninsula — has already been 

 determined by the presence in them of Trilobites referred by Dr. 

 H. Woodward to the genera Dolichometopus and Conocephalites and 

 allied to species from the Potsdam strata of New York (Geol. Mag. 

 1884, pp. 842-344), and the correctness of this reference is now con- 



