ig8 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



be entirely proper and doubtless a more correct expression of its value to 

 include it among the extreme departures of the type of S. c o n t i n e n s. 



Locality. Strophonella ampla occurs in the Schoharie grit of 

 Albany and Schoharie counties and throughout the outcrops of the Onon- 

 daga limestone in New York, being reported also from Ohio and Ontario. 

 The single specimen here mentioned is from Indian Cove. 



GASPESIA gen. nov, 

 Gaspesia aurelia (Billings) 



Plate 40, figures 17-19 



Orthis aurelia Billings. Palaeozoic Fossils. 1874. v. 2, pt i, p. 34, pi. 3, fig. 3 



The singular valves which Mr Billings described under the name cited 

 are strophomenoidlike shells with straight hinge extending the full width 

 of the valves, central beak, which is slightly produced beyond the hinge line, 

 a generally semielliptical outline, and the surface marked by sharp distant 

 and sparse radial ribs. The substance of the shell is tenuous and none of 

 the specimens show any trace of hinge structures or muscle scars and none 

 were noted by Billings. Billings remarked that the shell " closely resembles 

 O. pectinella Conrad of the Trenton limestone." In the apparent 

 suppression of hinge structures we have suspected the affiliation of this 

 species with the nearly symmetrical and thin shelled lamellibranchs of the 

 genera Halobia and Daonella and yet there is no positive evidence that the 

 beaks are not axial nor of any specialized anterior part which can be con- 

 strued as an auricle. They are probably to be regarded as an aberrant 

 strophomenoid, slightly convexo-concave, but the character of the shells is 

 so peculiar as to prevent their admission to any of the recognized brachiopod 

 genera. The strongly ribbed surface bears from 20 to 25 narrow radial plica- 

 tions separated by broad flat sulci which in old shells may show traces of 

 intercalary ribs but the primary ribs are all simple. These interspaces are 

 crossed concentrically by wavy inosculating elevated lines like the fine 

 lines on many crustacean carapaces. We should not venture to say that 

 the shells are of Siluric type for the comparison made by Billings is only 

 remote, but there is a certain similarity both in form and sculpture to the 

 species described by Hall and Clarke as Orthis ?glypta from the 

 Niagaran dolomites of Milwaukee \see Palaeontology of New York, 1894, v. 

 8, pt 2, p. 359, pi. 84, fig. 8, 9] which has been compared with O. loveni 

 Lindstrom from the Swedish Upper Siluric. One of the specimens appears 

 to have cardinal spines near one extremity but this appearance is prob- 

 ably misleading as the shell may have here sufl'ered an injury which has 

 distorted growth. 



Locality. Grande GrevCo Billings's specimens were from Indian 

 Cove, 



