ICHTHYOCRINIDAE 287 



well known from those rocks with the peculiar distorted base, and leaves no doubt of the 

 identity of the species which they were attempting to describe. 



Winchell and Marcy's paper was dated December 22, 1864, and was read before the 

 Boston Society, January 15, 1865, and published under date December, 1865; but before it 

 reached the press Hall published, as advance sheets of the 18th Report on the New York 

 State Cabinet of Natural History, dated December 26, 1864, printed in January, 1865, a 

 pamphlet entitled " Account of some new or little known species of Fossils from the Niagara 

 Group," r mainly devoted to fossils from the same rocks in Illinois and Wisconsin which 

 had produced the species described by Winchell and Marcy. Many of these Hall pronounced 

 identical with species described by him in 1863, and among them was an Ichthyocrinus which 

 he referred to his /. subangitlaris. This provoked immediate hostilities, and a lively skirmish 

 ensued characteristic of the wordy wars that raged at times among the American paleon- 

 tologists of the last generation, growing out of the energy and enthusiasm with which they 

 pursued their researches. 



Winchell and Marcy added a supplementary note to their main paper (p. 108) vigor- 

 ously defending their species, and as to /. corbis insisting on the absence of angularity and 

 the straight suture lines as characters plainly distinguishing it from Hall's species, " not to 

 speak of the supposed difference of basal structure." 



To this Hall replied in the 20th Report of the New York State Cabinet for 1867, 

 pp. 382-394, repelling the intimation of unfair practices, and maintaining his identification 

 of the Bridgeport specimens with /. subangitlaris. He disclaimed the ability to found a 

 species upon " supposed differences," and he properly stated that the straight suture lines are 

 not a good character, because the double curvature seen on his species is an external feature, 

 while the lines on the internal casts will necessarily be more direct. He gave a diagram from 

 one of Professor Marcy's specimens showing correctly the basals and the missing radial, and 

 insisted that the internal casts are subpentagonal. Winchell and Marcy did not continue the 

 debate, and Hall's contention held the field until 1882, when S. A. Miller 2 espoused their 

 cause, proposing to reinstate /. corbis on the strength of a specimen from Bridgeport 

 (Chicago) preserving part of the plates. He found the main character for distinguishing 

 the species to be in the " subradials " (basals), whose surface he declared to be elevated into 

 a triangular pyramid. This peculiar specimen, now in the collection of the Chicago Academy 

 of Science, is very imperfect, only parts of two rays being preserved ; the basals have the 

 triangular elevation mentioned by Miller, which may be their original shape or may be the 

 result of secondary deposit of the calcite composing' them. In any event it is not I. corbis, 

 being an elongate form with straight sides, and relative height to width of 1 to 1.1 — rather 

 the proportions of /. subangularis. 



In 1900, however, Weller 3 redescribing the Chicago specimens under the name /. sub- 

 angularis, reaffirmed the identity of the two species, basing his opinion largely upon the speci- 

 men figured by Hall i from Bridgeport having the plates preserved. He rejected Miller's 

 attempt to revive /. corbis on his Bridgeport specimen, which he declared to be a very small 

 one, and he thought the protuberance of the basal plates a juvenile character. 



Much of these differences of opinion might have been avoided by the consideration of 

 one fact which has been overlooked in the various discussions, viz., that the specimens of 

 Ichthyocrinus found in the Racine dolomite of the Illinois Niagaran are not necessarily all 

 of the same species. No doubt there was here as elsewhere a modification of specific charac- 

 ters during the deposition of the strata of that epoch, or different species may have coexisted 

 in the same area. We do not know that the various specimens described are all from the 



I Republished in the 20th Rep. N. Y. St. Cab. 1867, pp. 305-381. 

 "Jour. Cincinnati Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. 4, p. 175. 



II Chicago Acad. Sci., Bull. 4, p. 147. 



4 20th Report New York St. Cab. Nat. Hist., pi. 11, fig. 15. 



