10 BRITISH DEVONIAN BRACHIOPODA. 



Sub-genus — Renssel^eria, Hall. 

 Renssel-eria stringiceps, 1 var.? F. Boemer (sp.). PI. IV, figs. 5, 6, 7. 



Tekebratula strigiceps, F. Roemer. Rhein. Uebergangsgeb., p. 58, tab. i, fig. 6, 1844. 

 — — Ibid. Schnur, in Dunker und Von Meyer's Palaeonto- 



grapbica, vol. iii, p. 183, tab. xxv, fig. 2, 1853. 

 Rhynchonella — Sandberger. Die Brachiopoden des Rheinischen Schichten- 



Systems in Nassau, p. 41, pi. xxxii, fig. 14, 1S55. 



Spec. Char. Shell oval, elongated ; valves almost equally convex, without fold or sinus ; 

 beak much incurved and pointed ; surface of valves covered with numerous small radiating 

 ribs, which increase in number by the intercalation of additional ones at various distances 

 from the beak. Proportions variable; length 12, width 9 lines. 



Obs. Of this interesting species I can offer but an incomplete description, on account 

 of the very imperfect material at command, consisting of casts and impressions, 

 chiefly of the ventral valve, discovered by Mr. Valpy in the Middle (?) Devonian limestone 

 of Hagginton Hill, near Ilfracombe. Having compared these casts with others of T. 

 stringiceps from the Eifel, I could discern no valid ground for the creation of a separate 

 species, and will, therefore, at any rate provisionally leave our British specimens under the 

 specific name of stringiceps. I am also somewhat uncertain as to the genus to which 

 these casts should be referred ; but cannot, I think, be very far mistaken while provisionally 

 leaving them with Benssclaria, a sub-genus proposed by Professor Hall for a set of shells, 

 such as B. Suessana and B. ovoides, and which appear to nearly agree in general character 

 with B. stringiceps. Professor Hall describes his sub-genus as follows: — ''Shell inequivalved, 

 oval, ovoid or suborbicular, elongated or rarely transverse, generally gibbous or ventricose ; 

 valves more or less convex, without mesial fold or sinus ; beak prominent, acute, more or 

 less incurved ; foramen terminal, sometimes concealed ; . . . surface radiatingly striated, or 

 finely plicated, rarely smooth ; ' ' 2 all which would agree -with the description we have 

 given of the exterior characters of B. stringiceps. The muscular impressions resemble 

 those observable in Bensselaria, but nothing further can be said relative to the interior 

 dispositions, although we have reason to suspect that they must be similar to those de- 

 scribed by the American palaeontologist, and which consist of an elongated loop not 

 unlike that so well described by Professor Suess in Meganteris, to which the sub-genus 

 Bensselceria, if not a synonym, is at any rate very nearly related. 



B. stringiceps has been obtained from the Lower Devonian beds of the Rhine, in 

 Nassau, &c. 



1 Roemer spells tins name Strigiceps, but it ougbt by right to be Stringiceps, in accordance with the 

 -Greek genitive, as Stringocephalus. 



2 'Twelfth Annual Report of the Regents of the University of the State of New York,' p. 38, 1859. 



