320 A. Crane—Classification of the Brachiopoda. 
and that simplification of knowledge which should be the aim of 
every true lover of science when combined with strict accuracy of 
statement and observation. American scientists have produced of 
late so much sound and original work relating to the individual 
development and genetic evolution of the Brachiopoda that it is a 
pity that merely finishing touches in this department should be left 
to Huropeans. 
A revision of the families of the loop-bearing Brachiopoda was 
issued contemporaneously by Dr. Charles HE. Beecher’ to whom Mr. 
Schuchert expressed his acknowledgments for advice and assistance 
during the consideration of his new Classification of the Brachiopoda 
in general, wherein all the Terebratuloids are divided into the three 
families of the Terebratulide, Dyscoliide, and the Terebratellide 
grouped in nine sub-families. 
Dr. Beecher’s revision is simpler in character, as he recognizes 
only two families and seven sub-families. In the first division, for 
which he retains Gray’s family name of Terebratulide, he places the 
Centronelling, Waagen ; Stringocephaline, Dall; Terebratuling, Dall ; 
and the Discoling=the family (Dyscoliide) of Fischer and Cihlert. 
This last comprises the recent genera of Dyscolia, of which Terebra- 
tulina Wyvillei, Dav., is the type. Hucalathis, type Terebratula 
trigona, Jeffreys, and King’s sub-genus Agulhasia, of which a single 
species (A. Davidsoni) was dredged off the Cape of Good Hope, 
thus ranging from the Cretaceous to the recent period. The two 
former occur living in the Lusitanian and West African “‘ Provinces,” 
and are represented by fossil species in the Pliocene deposits of 
Sicily. Dr. Beecher considers all the Dyscoloids as degraded forms 
not representative of the highest development of the family type, 
and that the adult arm-structure in Dyscolia is homologous with 
early larval features of Terebratulina, as described by Morse. 
King’s family of Terebratellid@ is re-established and emended by 
Beecher, who divides it, however, into three sub-families. The 
prominent feature in this revision is the confirmation and adoption 
of the main results of the developmental studies of various species 
of recent Waldheimie by Friele, Fischer, and the Céhlerts. The 
Norwegian conchologist was the first to study the successive meta- 
morphoses of the loop in the Northern forms, long known as Macan- 
drevia cranium and Terebratula (W.) septigera of Loven. The French 
zoologists quite recently announced that the results of their investi- 
gations of the development of the Southern forms of the same group 
now called Magellania, M. venosa, M. lenticularis, etc., indicated 
divergent lines of development such as would necessitate the division 
of the recent species into two sections, each characterized by serial 
differences of gradational metamorphosis and adult features, as well 
as by important geographical limitations.’ 
1 «¢ Revision of the families of Loop-bearing Brachiopoda ;’’ “‘ The Development 
of Terebratalia obsoleta (Dall),’’ with three plates, by Charles K. Beecher. ‘Trans- 
actions of the Connecticut Academy of Sciences, vol. ix. March, 1893. 
2 Sur l’evolution de ? Appareil brachial de quelques Brachiopodes, Comptes Rendus, 
November, 1892. 
