254 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



which cover the surface. S. carinatus has been often de- 

 scribed and illustrated from the Coblentzian, most recently by 

 Kayser in Fauna des Hauptquartzits, 1889, page 24, plates i, 10, 

 14 and Scupin, Die Spiriferen Deutschlands, 1900, page 26, plates 

 2, 3. S. p e r i m e 1 e is a shell of rriedium proportions with rela- 

 tively narrow cardinal area extending to the full width of the shell ; 

 its fold and sinus are conspicuous and rounded, relatively narrow, 

 the fold sometimes becoming angular near the front. There are 10 



Spirifei perimele 



to 12 rounded, closely appressed plications on each lateral slope, 

 with narrow intervals. The sculpture when well preserved, which 

 is not often, consists of subequidistant - concentric elevated lines 

 without trace of radii, or fimbriae. The interior of the ventral 

 valve shows a narrow but rather long ovate muscle scar which 

 is not deeply depressed and is bounded by short dental lamellae. 

 Fuller description of the shell can not now be given but these 

 features are sufficient to indicate a dissimilarity with any known 

 American Spirifer of this horizon. 



Lower Devonic. Moosehead lake. Baker Brook point, Me. 



Spirifer subcuspidatus lateincisus Scupin 



Spirifer subcuspidatus var. lateincisa Scupin. Die 

 Spirif. Deutschlands, p. 19, pi. i, fig. 13, 14. Palaeontolog. Abhandl. 

 1900, V. 8 



Under this term is separated by the writer quoted, certain shells 

 which have heretofore passed as S. hystericus Schloth., among 

 them those identified by Beushausen from the Spirifer sandstone 

 of the Kahleberg. It is with these shells, many of which were 

 collected by the writer in the Hartz when in company with the 

 late Professor Beushausen, and which are now before me bearing 

 his label, that I undertake to identify the Spirifer prevailing at 

 Presque Isle stream. The critical feature from which the varietal 

 term here used is derived is the long and divergent dental plates 

 of the ventral valve, lateincisus being a term which has no 

 significance in application to the organism but only to its me- 

 chanical surroundings. This Spirifer is a form not represented 



