Correspondence — Rev. G. F. Whidhorne. 239 



coIiI^:E□SI=OIs^IDE3I^^c^!. 



PTEROCONUS Minus, HINDE. 



Sir, — Last Spring Mr. Upfield Green allowed me to see the fossils 

 lo which he afterwards gave the name Nereitopsis Cornubicus in the 

 Trans. Roy. Geol. See. Cornwall, vol. xii, p. 227, regarding them as 

 Annelids. While studying them, point after point came out which 

 forced me to the conclusion that they belonged either to Ortlioceras 

 or to a closely allied genus. The surface ornament, the contour, 

 the septa, and other details seemed thus, and only thus, explicable. 

 The chief perplexity was that, while the other parts were crushed 

 and partially obliterated, the siphuncle remained rigid ; but the 

 consideration of Actinoceras, and still more Huronia, seemed almost 

 to clear this away, and I felt able to tell Mr. Green that they were 

 in my opinion certainly Cephalopoda. 



With these fossils, or some of them. Dr. Hinde identifies those 

 collected by Mr. Howard Fox at Bedruthan, to which he has given 

 the name Pteroconus minis on p. 149 of the present volume of 

 the Geological Magazine, regarding them as Hyolithidse. These 

 fossils he has very kindly shown to me, and with the identity 

 of three of the specimens (his figs. 2, 3, 4) I agree, though still 

 venturing, in spite of such weighty authorities as Dr. Hinde and 

 Mr. Crick, to believe that I see in them Cephalopoda. The fossil 

 represented by his fig. 1, I confess that in my hurried examination 

 of it I could not fully decipher ; nor did I feel quite certain that 

 it was the same as the rest ; but at the same time some Devonian 

 Orthocerata which I have seen did appear as if they might go some 

 way toward explaining it. 



Fossils in such an extremely obscure state of preservation may, 

 I think, allow of a different interpretation without disrespect to the 

 authority of my valued friends ; and, indeed, I think that my 

 difference of view is mainly due to my regarding them as masked 

 and distorted by the processes of fossilization to a vei-y much greater 

 extent than they appear to consider. G. F. Whidborne. 



FOSSILS IN DEVONIAN ROCKS OF NORTH CORNWALL. 

 Sir, — The fossils figured by Mr. Green in the Transactions of 

 the Geological Society of Cornwall under the name of Nereitopsis 

 Cormibicus being very interesting ones, their further illustration and 

 description in the more widely circulating Geological Magazine 

 is a matter of congratulation. But is the renaming of them quite 

 in accordance with accepted rules of nomenclatui-e ? Dr. Hinde in 

 his paper ^ mentions the fact that Mr. Green did not fully describe 

 it ; but many accepted names rest on figures alone. He also states 

 that as, in his opinion, the fossils could not " in any way resemble 

 any species of iVerets," the name is "misleading and should be 

 changed." But has not the author of a genus the right to express 

 in the name what the form reminds him of, even if the resemblance 

 be fanciful ? — e.g. Ophiopsis, Pileopfiis, Galeopsis. And would not 

 the new name proposed {Pteroconus) be open to the same objection, 

 ' Geol. Mag., Dec. IV, Vol. VII, p. 149. 



