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SUPPLEMENT TO THE BRITISH 



32. Lept^na granulosa, Dav. Dav., Ool. Mon., p. 18, PI. I. fig. 20. 



This is not a Leptcena, but a shell more nearly allied to Terebratula ? Deslongchampsii 

 (see description of that species), and not to Placunopsis, as stated by Mr. R. Tate at 

 p. 550 of the ' Geol. Mag.,' vol. vi, 1864. 



Genus Spiriferina, a" Orb. 



Spiriferina rostrata, Schloth. ; Sp. Hartmanni, Zieten ; Sp. pinguis, Zieten (not of 

 Sowerby) ; and Sp. verrucosa, Von Buck. 



When in 1851 I published my impressions with reference to Spiriferina rostrata 

 and its so-termed varieties or variations in shape, I had before me a very large number 

 of specimens of the so-termed Sp. rostrata collected by Mr. C. Moore, Mr. Walton, 

 myself, and others, from the Lias of South Petherton, Radstock, Normandy, and many 

 other places ; and it appeared to me then, as it still does now, that the shell is very 

 variable in its shape, in the degree of convexity of its valves, dimensions of its area, 

 and incurvation of its beak, and that there exists a gradual tendency in some or in many 

 specimens to the formation of small or slightly defined ribs. This led me to consider 

 Sp. rostrata, Sp. Hartmanni, and Sp. pinguis, Zieten (not Sow.), and perhaps Sp. 

 verrucosa, as varieties or variations in shape of a single species. Since that period 

 Mr. Eugene Deslongchamps has dissented from the view I had taken, 1 and has endea- 

 voured to show that each of the forms above named could be characterised by some 

 definable or definite characters, and especially so with respect to the position or direction 

 assumed by their interior spiral coils. In Sup., PI. XI, figs. 7, 8, and 10, I have 

 reproduced his drawings for reference. I am really not yet quite satisfied that we have 

 four distinct species in the forms above named ; but, as Mr. E. Deslongchamps is so 

 decided in his view upon the subject, I will reproduce the synonyma he gives of each 

 species (?), and solicit the attention of British palaeontologists and collectors to a careful 

 examination of those forms attributed to Sp. Hartmanni and Sp. pinguis of Zieten, so as 

 to ascertain whether the characters assigned to them are really persistent, and carried out 

 in our British specimens." 



1 ' Ikudes critiques sur des Brachiopodes nouveaux ou pen connus,' p. 7, 1862. 



2 In bis paper in the 'Geological Magazine,' vol. vi, p. 552, 1869, Mr. R. Tate states that Sp. 

 ascendens occurs in the Marlstone of Somersetshire ; but I am not aware of this shell having been 

 collected from our British strata. 



