296 REPORT ON THE STATE CABINET. 



VI. ON THE GENERA ATHmiS, MERISTA AND MERISTELLA. 



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

 liut was not reached in the course of printing. In the meantime, Vol. iv 

 of the Palceontology of New York has been completed ; and the notice of 

 that volume in this Report, pp. 173-199, will give all the essential points 

 in the later investigations of these genera, being in fact the substance of 

 the paper prepared for the former Report. 



These later investigations have added something to our 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 

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

 three species, very positive differences have been observed. 



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 1 

 think will be so conceded by unprejudiced naturalists. These views have 

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

 in full in his Monograph of the Palceozoic Brachiopoda of Oreat 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 Genus Meris- 

 tella, he sets up the Genus Charionella upon precisely the same 

 grounds, except an impossible hinge structure. 



In the July number of the American Journal 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. 



* Thirtee7ith Report on the State Cabinet, 1860. 



