298 REPORT ON THE STATE CABINET. 



" Wheu two authors define and name the same geuus, both, making it exactly 

 of the same extent, the latter oame should be cauceled in toto, and not retained 

 in a modified sense." 



Mr. Billings gives an ideal figure of M'Coy — or at least, if not ideal, 

 it is given without a name in the Carboniferous Fossils of Ireland, p. 128 

 (fig. 19) — ^and speaks of it as the " typical figure." He copies Sjnrigera 

 concentrica von BucH, from Davidson's Monograph of British Devonian 

 Brachiopoda, " a little restored, with the aperture in the beak made larger 

 than it is in the original figure ;" * at the same time forgetting to tell us 

 that it is given by Davidson as Athgris concentrica, and not Spirigera con- 

 centrica. All this is very " unsophisticated." 



It is scarcely necessary to inform the student of Paljeontology that 



Prof M'CoY placed Terebratula tumida of Dalman under his Genus 



Athyris only in 1852, in his work on the British Palceozoic Fossils, as 



follows : 



" Genus ATHYRIS M'Coy, 1844." 

 " Qjn.^Spirigera D'Oeb., 1848." 



— ^Thus recording his own view of the matter in citing Spikigeea, without 

 comment or qualification, as a synonym of Athyris ; a fact which Mr. 

 Billings has forgotten or omitted to state, t 



Mr. Billings, however, undertakes to tell us the operations of Prof. 

 M'Coy's mind, and what he knew or thought upon the subject; some 

 portions of which are interesting, though we acknowledge our inability 

 to entirely comprehend the first sentence of the following paragraph. 

 After quoting M'Coy's desci^iption of the Genus Athyris, and his remarks 

 upon this group of shells, from page 146 of Carboniferous Fossils of Ireland, 

 1844, he proceeds as follows: 



" The above is all that he wrote about the genus at that time ; aud it will be 

 perceived that he does not point out any particular species as the type ; aud, 

 further, that there is nothing in his remarks from which it can be iuferred that 



* Fig. 2. — Spirigera concentrica, Von Buch. The form is copied from Davidson's Monograph 

 of the British Devonian Brachiopoda, Vol. iii, fig. 13. Pal. Soc. for 1862. The right hand side 

 is, in this copy, a little restored, and the aperture in the beak made larger than it is in the orignal 

 figure." 



t Following the citation above. Prof. M'CoT gives an amended description of the Genus Athyris, 

 which differs somewhat fi-om that published in 1844, and is as follows : 



"Gen. char. — Nearly orbicular or ovate, both valves convex; no cardinal area, foramen*, or 

 hinge-line ; spiral appendages to beak of entering valve very large, nearly filling the shell ; a strong 

 mesial septum in rostral part of entering valve ; dental lamelte moderate ; tissue of shell appa 

 rently fibrous." 



* See note on page 378 of British Palmozoic Fossils, cited on page 300 of this Report. 



