2 FREDERICK IV. SARDESON 



Regarding their interpretation, uncertainty exists to the 

 extent that all Monticuliporoidea may be contested as not true 

 Bryozoa, but Tabulata or Alcyonarian corals, belonging then 

 to a different subkingdom of animals. This uncertainty may 

 be illustrated as to its attendant difficulties by reference to 

 Eastman's 1 Text-book of Paleontology, Vol. I, where Prasopora, 

 Neuropora, and many other genera appear twice, first under 

 Ccelenterata and second under Bryozoa; the first following the 

 text of Zittel, the second the authority of the translator's col- 

 laborator, who has taken the liberty to make some revision. 



The fact that one cannot assert positively that species of the 

 genus Prasopora and other genera were Ccelenterates or were 

 Bryozoons, is due to outward similarity of these two groups and 

 obscurity in the fossils as to class characters. Yet structural 

 details as to minor characters are well preserved, and hence the 

 distinction of species and their grouping into genera is not 

 impracticable here more than in many other groups, since species 

 may be distinguished clearly in fossils as in living organisms 

 without knowledge of phylogenic relation to other classes. 

 Ulrich, who considers them all as Bryozoa, and Nicholson, who 

 treated them as corals, ought nevertheless to present the same 

 determinations as to species, genera, and families. Their failure 

 to agree is not due to that cause. However, the former, in 

 Eastman's translation of Zittel [op. cit.), presents as families of 

 Bryozoa (viz., Calloporidae, etc.) those which, following Nichol- 

 son [vide op. cit., pp. 103-105), are given as genera Callopora, 

 etc., of Ccelenterata. Understanding this discrepancy, the hand- 

 book is as useful respecting these as other groups, and the fos- 

 sils are as easily used under its guidance. The student may 

 choose his authority or follow a happy median course. 



The lack of censorship in Eastman's Paleo?itology, just 

 mentioned, may serve to argue further need of it in other places. 

 S.A.Miller's catalogue 2 divides the Monticuliporoidea species 



1 Text-book of Paleontology, by Karl A. von Zittel, translated by Charles R. 

 Eastman, 1900. 



* S. A. Miller, North American Geology and Paleontology. 



