258 TWENIIETH KEPOET ON THE STATE CABINET. 



VII. ON THE GENERA ATIIYRIS, MERISTA AND MERISTELLA. 



This paper was prepared for the Nineteenth Report on the State Cabinet, 

 but was not reached in the course of printing. In the mean time, Vol. 

 IV of the Palaeontology of New-York has been completed ; and the notice 

 of that volume in this Report, pp. 145-169, will give all the essential 

 points in the later investigations of these genera, being in fact the sub- 

 stance of the paper prepared for the former Report. 



These later investigations have added something to oar knowledge of the 

 interior structure or character of the internal spires of Athyris and 

 Meristella, as illustrated in this notice. We have also seen enough of 

 other forms to induce a doubt regarding the structure of the spires in sume 

 of the species heretofore referred to these genera, and, in two or three 

 species, very positive differences. 



In a former Report,* I discussed the nomenclature of these shells with 

 regard to the adoption of the use of the generic names Athyris and 

 Spirigera, in a manner which I regarded as fair and just, and which I 

 think will be so concede.d by unprejudiced naturalists. These views have 

 received the approbation of Mr. Davidson, who has copied my remarks in 

 full in his Monograph of the Palaeozoic Brachiopoda of Great Britain ; 

 and it is gratifying to have the approval of a gentleman who has made the 

 special study of the Brachiopoda the principal work of a lifetime. My 

 views, however, were fiercely attacked in the American Journal of Science, 

 in an article bearing the marks of triple authorship, and also by one of 

 the authors, in his paper in the Canadian Journal, where "by geologic 

 blows and knocks," after having demolished the Grenus Meristella, he sets 

 up the Genus Charionella upon precisely the same grounds, except an 

 impossible hinge structure. 



In the July number of the Amer. Jour, of Science (1867), Mr. Billings 

 devotes something over thirteen pages to a discussion of "the classification 

 "of the subdivisions of M'Coy's Genus Athyris as determined by the 

 "laws of zoological nomenclature." We are treated in the outset with a 

 note in which Mr. P. P.-Carpenter is reported as having "said that he 

 " thought Mr. Billings had clearly established his point," etc. " Mr. 

 " Whiteaves stated that he was satisfied with the correctness of the 

 "view Mr. Billings had taken," etc. " Principal Dawson deplored the 



* Thirteenth Report on the State Cabinet, 1860. 



