474 Notices of Memoirs — G. R. Vine on Fossil Pol i/zoa. 



by authors incliscrirainatelj'- for all manner of fenestrated Pol3'zoa. 

 Lamarck, in 1815, fixed the type of Linnasus, Millepora cellulosa, 

 calling it E. cellulosa, and since then, the name Eetepora has been 

 vised for a genus of the Esohartd^. None of the so-called Eetepora 

 of the Palaeozoic era have any affinity with this family, or even with 

 the genus as now understood. The word should be entirely aban- 

 doned for every species of Palfeozoic Polyzoa. 



1836. Escharina, Milne-Edwards. 

 1847. Escharopora, Hall. 



As both these genera have been used by authors ^ for Palaeozoic 

 species, it niay be as well to draw attention to its misuse. The types 

 E. recta and the 'var. nodosa Hall com2:)ares with Eschara ? scalpellmn 

 — now Ptilodictya scalpeUnm. Lonsd., and the Escharina of Milne- 

 Edwards, in part, is the Microporella of Hincks, a genus which 

 includes species selected from no fewer than ten genera of recent 

 and fossil Polyzoa. 



Laying aside the genus Ptilodictya, I have no knowledge of any 

 other Paleeozoic Polyzoa that can be, even provisionally, placed with 

 the Cheilostomata. After careful consideration I am reluctantly 

 obliged to say that at present there is no evidence that the sub-order 

 existed in any of the Palaeozoic seas, and further, the evidence is 

 very doubtful until we reach the Mesozoic era. Notwithstanding 

 this decision, I shall be amongst the first to acknowledge the earlier 

 existence of types if well-defined evidence is brought to bear in the 

 diagnosis of new discoveries. 



Taking into consideration the shape and character of the cell as 

 presenting, apparently, an Escharide type, I think I cannot do 

 better than begin this Report with a revision of the whole of the 

 Ptilodictya. M'Coy^ places this genus as the fourth in his family 

 Escharidce ; Berenicea being the third genus in the family. From 

 the characters given, " cells shallow, oblong, or ovate, often provided 

 with an operculum, capable of being closed by special muscles," 

 M'Coy evidently believed that the Paleeozoic species could be natu- 

 rally placed in this family. The true Escharide are of later date, 

 probably not older than the Lower Oolite, and then not as a typical, 

 but only as a kind of passage group. Leaving the classification as 

 an open question at present, I shall take Lonsdale's definition for the 

 group as redescribed by M.Coy : — 



1839. Ptilodictya, Lonsdale. 

 1847. Stictopora, Hall. 



'•' Zoarium ^ thin, calcareous, foliaceous, or branching dichotomouslj'' ; 

 branches sometimes coalescing : a thin, laminar, flattened, concen- 

 trically wrinkled central axis ; set with oblique, short, subtubular, 

 or ovate cells on both sides, with prominent oval mouths, nearly as 

 large as the cells within ; branches often flattened, with the margin 

 solid, sharp-edged, striated, and without cells ; the boundary ridges 

 of the cells square or rhomboidal." 



^ Escharina angularis, Lonsd., Morris' Catalogue; JEscharipora recta, Hall, Val. 

 N.Y., vol. i. 2 jjiit^ Paige. Foss. ^ Corallum, Lonsdale, M'Coy's I'al. Foss. 



