THE 



aEOLOaiCAL MAGAZINE. 



NEW SERIES. DECADE IV. VOL. X. 



No. v. — MAY, 1903. 



o:RXGrx:£<r j^iL, j^:rtxcxjJB23. 



I. — WooDWARDiAN MusEUM NoTEs : Braohymetopus Strzeleckii, 



McCoy, 1847. 



By F. R. CowPEK Reed, M.A., F.G.S. 



THE genus Brachjmetopus was founded by McCoy in 1847/ and 

 the generic characters were drawn from the Australian species 

 Br. Strzeleckii, McCoy, which was at the same time described. The 

 specific characters of this form were very briefly given, the leading 

 features having been mentioned in the diagnosis of the genus. 

 Dr. Henry Woodward^ in 1884 gave a new summary of the generic 

 characters differing somewhat from that originally furnished hy 

 McCoy, being modified in such a way as to include the European or 

 British species, Br. ouralicus, De Vern., Br. Maccoyi, Portl., Br. discors, 

 McCoy, and Br. hibernicus, Woodw. The original type- specimens of 

 Br. Strzeleckii used by McCoy (op. cit.) in drawing up the description 

 of the genus, and figured by him at the same time, are in the 

 Woodwardian Museum, to which they were presented in the year 

 1844 by the Kev. W. B. Clarke. They come from the Carboniferous 

 Shale of Dunvegan, New South Wales.^ The specimens comprise 

 three complete head-shields, two of which are hollow impressions and 

 one a cast, and portions of three or four others ; there are also three 

 casts of complete pygidia, one perfect impression, and fragments of 

 two others. This material demands a fuller description of the specific 

 characters than McCoy furnished, particularly as this type-form of 

 Brachymetopus shows features differing in several respects from those 

 of the better known European species ascribed to the same genus. 

 McCoy's description (op. cit.) of the species was as follows : — 

 " Glabella widest at the base, with one very minute, obscurely marked^ 

 cephalothoracic furrow at the base on each side ; all the segments of 

 the pygidium with an irregularly tuberculated ridge along the 

 middle ; lateral segments forming large tubercles where they join 

 the thickened limb, opposite each of which is a short slender spine 

 projecting from the margin." 



1 McCoy: Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., xx (1847), p. 229, pi. xii, figs, la, lb. 



2 Henry Woodward : Mon. Brit. Carb. Trilob. (PaUieont. Soc), 1884, p. 46. 



^ The plants in this collection have lately been re-described by Mr. E. A. Newell 

 Arber, Q.J.G.S., Iviii (1902), pp. 1-26. 



DECADE IV. VOL. X. NO. V. 13 



