REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR I919 97 



In 1896 (p. 85) Gurley described three species of Caryocaris from 

 America, namely, C. wrightii, C. oblongus and C . 

 curvilatus, the first from the Beekmantown shale in Nevada, 

 the second from the same shale in Quebec, and the third from both 

 regions. He referred, however, the genus to the graptolites, from 

 its supposed resemblance to Dawsonia, claiming (ibid., p. 86) that 

 Lapworth agreed with him in this view. Gurley held that what 

 hitherto had been described as Caryocaris were only appendages, 

 and that the complete body consists of " two symmetrically paired 

 lateral appendages attached to the distal end of a single median 

 proximal portion on which thecae could perhaps be traced " (see 

 text figure 39). This view was rejected in a brief note by Wiltshire, 

 Woodward and Jones the year after it had been advanced (1897, 

 p. 4). 



In the first volume of the Graptolites of New York, (1904, p. 

 737) the present writer has doubtfully referred a form from the 

 Deep kill shale of New York to Caryocaris curvilatus 

 but having only the podlike bodies before him he did not care to 

 select between the conflicting opinions. 



In the preparation of the second volume, the writer had an oppor- 

 tunity of studying Gurley's type material from the Pifion range in 

 Nevada and it was then recognized that this material contained par- 

 tial abdomina with the telson consisting of a style and two flanking 

 cercopods, and that these abdomina had been construed by Gurley 

 into winged graptolite rhabdosomes (see Ruedemann, 1908, p. 486). 

 It may be mentioned here that on inspection of the preservation of 

 the material, the similarity of the substance of both groups of fossils, 

 and the frayed character of the margins of many specimens, due to 

 the " plaiting " or imperfect cleavage of the shale and suggestive of 

 graptolite thecae, readily enough explains the origin of Gurley's 

 misconception about their nature. 



While undoubtedly a crustacean, Caryocaris still remained an 

 imperfectly known genus; as is indicated by Zittel's definition, re- 

 tained in the last edition of Zittel-Eastman's textbook (1913, p. 751) 

 which reads : " Caryocaris, Salter. Carapace smooth, subacute in 

 front, thick. Abdomen unknown; caudal plate with three spines. 

 Cambrian; Wales." 



In a collection of Lower Ordovician graptolites from the Alaska- 

 Yukon boundary sent to the writer by L. D. Burling of the Geological 

 Survey of Canada for identification, a small number of specimens 

 of Caryocaris were noted, one of which retains the abdomen in 



