PALEONTOLOGIC CONTRIBUTIONS 1 3 



Inocaulis lesquereuxi (Grote and Pitt) 



Plate 4, figures 1-4 



There had been on exhibition in the State Museum for many 

 years a fine slab from the Bertie waterlime at Buffalo which bore 

 the label " Hydroid?." This reference was clue to the fact that the 

 long, straight bandlike branches of this fossil, which otherwise 

 would be considered as a seaweed, are densely covered with fine 

 tubercles in some places and fine pores in others. For this reason 

 the specimen has also been considered as a seaweed covered with a 

 bryozoan. An occasional closer inspection of the specimen showed 

 that in the basal portion the branches are composed of a twisted 

 mass of long, fine carbonaceous (chitinous?) fibers, that also in the 

 upper portion such patches of fibers are discernible and that the 

 tubercles are the casts of the pores, so that the entire surface of the 

 organism appears covered with pores. Along the edges, however, 

 the terminal straight portions of the tubes or fibers are preserved 

 in many places and are seen to project as a dense corona of pro- 

 cesses perpendicular to the surface (see pi. 4, figs. 2 and 4). 



This structure suggests that the fossil is a graptolite related to 

 the group represented by Inocaulis, Palaeodictyota etc. A fossil 

 from the Bertie waterlime of Buffalo, identical in general aspect 

 with our specimen, has been described by Grote and Pitt (Bui. 

 Buffalo Soc. Nat. Sci., 3 :88. 1876) and later figured by Pohl- 

 man (op. cit., 4:19. 1881) as a seaweed under the name 

 Buthotrephis lesquereuxi. Superintendent Howland 

 of the museum of the Buffalo Society was so kind as to send me 

 both Grote and Pitt's and Pohlman's types, as well as two other 

 specimens. All these show the identical porous surface and fibrous 

 structure of the branches in many places. We should therefore 

 have no hesitation in referring this organism to the graptolites if it 

 were not for the fact that its closest relatives, the species of 

 Buthotrephis from the Eurypterid beds at Kokomo, have been 

 considered as algae by no less an authority than Mr David White. 1 



It is now perfectly legitimate that in the view of the paleobotanist 

 the vegetal features of the fossils should stand out most strongly, 

 while in that of the invertebrate paleontologist those suggestive of 

 a reference to a class of the animal kingdom would be most 

 prominent. While with fossils of such a negative character as 

 Buthotrephis lesquereuxi a positive conclusion may 



1 David White. Two new species of algae of the genus Buthotrephis from 

 the Upper Silurian of Indiana. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., 24: 265. 1902. 



