94 OOS^ZE^ZESIE^OnSTHDElNrCE- 



♦ 



ON THE COTYLEBEHMIBJE. 



SiK, — The December Number of your Magazine contains a letter 

 from Mr. Chas. Moore, of Bath, purporting to be a notice of "the 

 genera Tlicatocrinus, Cotylederma, and Solano crinus,^^ of which he 

 tells us next to nothing, but attempts to make it appear that I made 

 an erroneous diagnosis of the Cotylederm I described in the October 

 Number of the Magazine, and gives an inaccurate account of private 

 conversations which ought not to have been published. Let me 

 narrate, by way of explanation, what did occur. 



Late in the evening, at the Conversazione held in Colston Hall on 

 the 27th August last, during the Meeting of the British Association 

 at Bristol, my friend Mr. F. Longe, F.Gr.S., met me in the room, and 

 told me he had found a new fossil in the Lias near Charmouth, and 

 wished to have my opinion upon it» Taking the specimen from his 

 pocket, he said, *' Tell me what it is." I replied;, " The light is now 

 so bad that I am afraid I cannot see that small dark object," but 

 placing it under the dim twinkle of an expiring lamp to examine it, 

 I said, " From what I can make out, it resembles a Balanus, for it 

 has adhered to something, has a bent body composed of unequal 

 longitudinal pieces, and has an opening at the top, but the pieces or 

 plates are different in structure and mode of junction from those of 

 s^nj Balanus I know. If you will let me have the specimen again 

 when I have a good light, and raj pocket lens, to help me, I will 

 endeavour to make out more about it." 



On the following Monday morning I met Mr. C. Moore in one of 

 the railway carriages between Bath and Bristol. He took Mr. Longe's 

 fossil from his pocket, and showed it to me. I told him I had seen 

 it on Friday evening at the Conversazione, and repeated what I had 

 said to Mr. Longe about it (but added that I had seen it in so dim a 

 light it was impossible to make out anything beyond its general 

 outline). I then carefully examined the fossil with my lens, and we 

 talked over the very singular character of the group Gotyledermidce, 

 to which it evidently belonged, and about the structure of which, 

 from that conversation, it appeared we had everything to learn. Mr. 

 C. Moore said he thought he had found separate plates of the same 

 fossil, which however he never showed to me in his museum. He 

 is further mistaken in saying that I had the advantage of consulting 

 Deslongchamps' " Memoire sur le couche a Leptcena," which I did 

 not see until after my notice had appeared in the Magazine in 

 October, otherwise I should have found that the author had referred 

 this form of Cotyledermid^ to Miinster's genus PUcatocrinus, and 

 that on the first sight of the fossil, Deslongchamps had the same 

 impression of its form and affinities as myself ; for he says at p. 45 : 

 " It has the aspect of a small Balanus, and like the Balanus is formed 

 of unequal longitudinal plates ; but here the resemblance ceases : the 

 plates, which are thick and flat, have their borders placed in simple 

 juxtaposition, and not united by a serrated suture." From the 

 foregoing, it is evident I gave no opinion on the subject, and this 

 Mr. C. Moore knew from myself, as I told him what I had said to 

 Mr. Longe ; therefore I consider it very unfair on his part to state 



