IS BRITISH DEVONIAN BRACHIOPODA. 



It is stated by Professor M'Coy, p. 378 of his ' British Pal. Fossils,' that this is a 

 crushed internal cast of A. concentrica ; but, although I have seen the original specimen 

 in the Geological Society's Museum, I would not, upon such scanty and unsatisfactory 

 materia], either venture to confirm or infirm the statement given by the distinguished 

 palaeontologist above named. 



Athyris phaljena, Phil, (sp.), 1841. PI. Ill, figs. 19, 20, 21. 



Spirifera phal^ena, Phillips. Figures and Descriptions of the Palaeozoic Fossils of Corn- 

 wall, Devon, and West Somerset, p. 71, pi. xxviii, fig. 123, 1841. 

 — HIRUNDO, Phillij)S? Ibid., pi. xxviii, fig. 122. 



Terebratula Hispanica, De Verneuil. Bull. Soc. Geol. France, 2nd ser., vol. ii, p. 463, 



pi. xiv, figs. 6, 7, 1845. 

 Spirigera phal^ena, Dav. General Introduction, British Foss. Brach., vol. i, pi. vi, fig. 

 70, 1853. 



Spec. Char. Transversely elongated, two or three times wider than long, with 

 rounded cardinal angles. Hinge-line slightly curved, valves moderately convex, with a 

 wide biplicated fold in the dorsal valve, and wide sinus in the ventral one, bordered by 

 two rounded ribs ; beak small, incurved and truncated by a small circular aperture ; beak- 

 ridges tolerably defined, leaving a somewhat elongated flattened space between them and 

 the hinge-line. External surface regularly traversed by continuous, equidistant, small 

 ridges or furrows. Dimensions variable, the only two British examples hitherto discovered 

 measured — 



Length 7, width 16 lines. 

 ^ 17 



Obs. This very interesting species appears to be rare in great Britain, for I have 

 been able to examine but two imperfect specimens, obtained by Professor Phillips at 

 Hope's Nose, near Torquay, and now preserved in the Museum of the Geological Survey of 

 Great Britain ; and indeed but one of these two (a single imperfect ventral valve) was 

 named Sp. phalana by Phillips, while the second decorticated example received the name 

 of Sp. hirimdo. Both are, however, considered by Professor De Koninck and myself as 

 belonging to a single species. Sp. phalcena occurs plentifully in the Devonian limestone 

 of Eerrones (Asturias), Spain, from whence M. De Verneuil obtained some examples 

 which had attained one inch in length by three and a quarter in width. Some short time 

 afterwards I discovered specimens of the same, but of smaller dimensions, in beds of the 

 same age (" Rhenane"), at Nehou, in France. 



