I98 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



normal to the main direction of the branch and continued into an apertural 

 spine. 



Position and locality. In the dark greenish Clinton shale overlying the 

 lower ore bed at Clinton, Oneida co., N. Y. 



Remarks. Notwithstanding their great width, the branches seem to 

 have been very little resistent for they are completely flattened out in a 

 layer where all the associated small lamellibranchs and brachiopods have 

 preserved their original form fairly well. The light color and obvious 

 tenuity of the carbonaceous films are further proof that there has been very 

 little substance and strength to the walls. 



The branches in the type specimen are not spread out on the surface 

 of a single layer but all separated by thin layers of shale and extending in 

 various directions into the rock so that it becomes obvious that the oricnnal 

 form of the bush was rather scraggly and that it contained more branches 

 than are shown in the figure. 



palaeodictyota Whitfield, emend. Ruedemann 

 Dr Ringueberg [1888, p. 131 | has referred a species from the Rochester 

 shale to Inocaulis ( I . anastomotic'us) stating at the time that he did 

 so with some hesitancy because his form is provided with anastomoses or 

 reticulations of the branches while Inocaulis is loosely branching and adding : 

 " Still the character of the branches so closely resembles those belonging to 

 this genus that I am constrained to place it here." We have no doubt from 

 the absence of the anastomes in some parts of the rhabdosomcs and their 

 presence in others [see pi. 6, fig. 4 ; pi. 7, fig. 6] that the) - should not be given 

 too much weight in generic distinction, although the) - give the species here 

 under consideration a most characteristic aspect and may indicate a definite 

 growth tendency which requires recognition ; and indeed has found it in 

 being made the criterion of distinction between Desmograptus and Dictyo- 

 nema. But it becomes evident from a closer comparison of the branches of 

 Inocaulis plumulosus and I. anastomoticus that also an import- 

 ant difference appears in these, notwithstanding their general similarity 



