168 R. G. Carruthers — A Revidon of some Carboniferous Corals. 



Pavlow of Moscow (to whom I wish to return mj- sincere thanks for 

 the trouhle tliey have taken in the matter) have failed to bring to 

 light the specimen figured by Fischer de Waldheim in his " Orycto- 

 graphie du Gouvernement de Moscou " (PL xxx, fig. 5), but as far 

 as one can see from the figure and description there given, the 

 external area of the original specimen is entirely destroj^ed, and if 

 this is so it would be impossible to specifically (or probably even 

 generically) identify it ; in these circumstances, therefore, while 

 calling attention to de Koninck's opinion, one is compelled to retain 

 Michelin's name for the coral. 



De Koninck further included d'Eichwald's Lophophyllum breviceps 

 (Lethasa rossica, t. i, p. 527, pi. xxix, fig. 6) as a synonym of 

 L. (himonti, M.-Ed. & H. (which, in my opinion, is clearly a young 

 form of Caninia cornucopice) ; d'Eichwald's species, however, has not 

 been included here in the synonymy, since his figure and description, 

 while certainly leaving the impression that de Koninck was correct 

 in his views, are not sufficiently clear to settle the point without 

 a personal examination of the original specimen, and this for the 

 present I have been unable to carry out. For a similar reason, 

 McCoy's Cijathopsis cornucopice and Cyathopsis cornu-bovis are also 

 excluded from the synonymy, although there can be little doubt from 

 McCoy's description (" Palaeozoic Fossils," p. 90), that he was dealing 

 with forms at any rate congeneric with Caninia cornucopice. One of 

 McCoy'.s localities for Cyatliopais cornucopice \% given as " Carboniferous 

 shale near Glasgow." This must have beeu from an Upper Visean 

 horizon, and it is therefore not probable that a specimen from so high 

 a level was quite identical with the Tournaisian species.^ 



Affinities. 



Compared with other Tournaisian corals Caninia cornucopicB is 

 a very distinct species, and amongst such I have not yet noticed any 

 bearing a real resemblance to it. It is true that de Koninck claimed 

 for the species a great similarity with Zaphrentis delanouei, but while 

 that may be so for the calices he examined (though the septa are 

 always thinner in C. cornucopicB), the two are completely different 

 in transverse sections (see Plates V and VI) as well as in epithecal 

 characters ; the only real similarity occurs in transverse sections 

 across the comparatively rare amplexoid growth stage of Zaplirentis 

 delanouei, and in such cases a further section across the lower conical 

 portions will immediately solve the difficulty. 



Amplexus spinosus, de Kon., differs in epithecal characters, in the 

 ])ossession of an extremely shallow and ill-marked cardinal fossula, 

 and in the absence of a dumonti phase. 



Caninia gigantea, Mich., is far larger, has more closely set septa, 

 and the marginal zone of dissepiments is thick, and is developed at an 

 early stage of growth. 



^ MoCo)' noted in his description of Ct/athopxis cornucopice that " the absence of the 

 vesiciihir zone of the true Caninia is not a little remarkable." This, of course, was 

 because he erroneously took the ti'ue Caninia to be C. (jigantea, and was unaware that 

 Caninia cornucopice developed a dissepimental margin in its iinal growth stages. 



