296 R. Etheridge, jun. — On the genus Coniilaria. 



figure this character might be easily overlooked, as it seems to 

 have been by most subsequent writers, indeed it might well be 

 mistaken for merely the sides of the shell crushed in. The 

 very fragmentary form in which we usually find Coniilaria goes 

 far to prove the thinness and delicacy of its test, and it may be on this 

 account that the structure of the larger end is so seldom preserved. 



A small, but well-marked specimen of G. quadrisulcata, Sow., 

 from the shale of the Orchard Cement Stone (Up. Limestone series) 

 at Williamwood, four miles south of Glasgow, in the possession of 

 Mr. J. Bennie, of the Geological Survey of Scotland, enables me to 

 confirm Sowerby's description of the inflected margins of the mouth 

 in Conularia. At the point at which we usually find the conical 

 sides of the shell broken ofi", all four margins are uniformly inflected 

 and bent down, but do not meet in the centre of the truncated end ; 

 on the contrary, a quadrangular opening is left, with the four corners 

 forming re-entering grooves, which join the four angles formed by 

 the union of the conical sides of the shell. On the face of each in- 

 flected margin is a sharp ridge, corresponding to that running down 

 each side of the cone, crossed at an angle by similar transverse 

 granulated strise. It is probable that these inflected surfaces were 

 continued still further inwards and upwards, as one or two of the 

 central ridges show some traces of fracture. Whether this structure 

 closed the orifice of Conularia or not it is difficult to say. It may 

 have acted the part of the Operculum in an allied form, TJieca oper- 

 culata, Salter (Mem. Geol. Survey, vol. iii., app. p. 351, t. 10, f. 

 22-24), from the Lower Tremadoc beds, at Portmadoc, although 

 itself not an Operculum in the true sense of the word. 



The affinities of Conularia have been the source of much difference 

 of opinion amongst Palgeontologists. Its original describer, Miller, 

 placed it with the Cephalopoda ; in this he is followed by Fleming 

 (Brit. Animals, p. 240) and others. On the other hand Sowerby 

 considered that it had affinities with Teredo (Sow. 1. c. p. 107). 

 D'Archiac and De Verneuil were, so far as I am aware, the first to 

 place Conularia amongst the Pteropoda (Geol. Trans., second series, 

 vol. vi., pt. 2, p. 325), and there, for the want of better defined 

 affinities, it has remained. Prof. Hall placed the genus amongst the 

 Cephalopoda from the fact that a Trenton Limestone species, which 

 he referred to Comdaria (C. Trentonensis) , had perforated septa, as 

 in Orthoceras (Pal. New York, vol. i. p. 222) ; but the probability is 

 that the form in question is not a Conularia at all, although Sowerby 

 in a measure somewhat confirms this view when he speaks of the 

 presence of "imperforate septa" (Sow., 1. c, p. 107). One of the 

 chief arguments brought against the pteropodous nature of Comdaria 

 is that of its size, and again its alleged gregarious habit. We have 

 only to turn by way of analogy to various other divisions of the 

 animal kingdom to at once perceive the fallacy of the former argu- 

 ment. As regards its gregarious habit, I think solitary specimens 

 are as common, if not more so, than their occurrence in associated 

 masses. Like living Pteropods, Conularia appears to have had a 

 fragile shell, though, perhaps, in not so marked a degree as is to be 



