246 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



If then P. brachymera, the genotype of the genus, is not a valid 

 species, the validity of the genus rests on the next species. This, P . 

 laevis, has been described by Hall as Graptolithus laevis. Its 

 type and another specimen are in the American Museum of Natural History. 

 Gurley describes the type [1896] as follows: 



A careful examination of the type specimen shows that it is about 

 55 mm long, uniformly about 0.8 mm wide throughout. In one place a break 

 occurs which, in the light of the other species, I incline to interpret as a 

 segmentation, especially as the adjacent ends appear smoothly cut. Obscure 

 traces of a median virgulalike chitinous thread are visible at intervals ; no 

 pits could be made out with certainty. The specimen is a mere film much 

 wrinkled. 



In another specimen I was able, however, to make out distinctly all the 

 essential Phycograptus characters, viz, segmentations, pits, marginal grooves ; 

 and, in addition what appeared to be traces of a central chitinous virgula- 

 like thread. 



Horizon and locality. Utica shale, Turin, Lewis co., N. Y. Two 

 specimens in American Museum of Natural History. 



Hall's type shows no structure whatever and the second specimen 

 only a few longitudinal threads. The latter I take to be sponge spicules, 

 the whole probably representing a very slender sponge. This sponge is 

 evidently conspecific or at least congeneric with another like slender 

 flexible form, which is found attached in bundles to shells of the Utica 

 shale (e.g. Schizocrania filosa) and of which a group contained 

 in the National Museum has been labeled by Dr Gurley as "Phy- 

 cograptus j u n-c if o r m is." I have obtained the same form in the 

 Utica shale near Dolgeville. These specimens distinctly contain straight, 

 carbonaceous, longitudinally placed sponge spicules and in some places 

 small patches of squarish meshes of spicules and most probably represent a 

 hitherto undescribed sponge. 



If the writer's contention is correct that the genotype of Phycograptus 

 is but the frontal view of a Dicellograptus and the other species of the 

 supposed genus not a graptolite, the genus Phycograptus has to be 

 suppressed. 



