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BRITISH DEVONIAN BRACHIOPODA. 



be nothing more than a variety of Atrjjpa reticularis or prisca, and they may probably be 

 correct in the view they have taken of the matter. A.flabeMata, as far as my observa- 

 tions go, would however differ from the Linnean form by the greater convexity of its 

 dorsal valve, by its more simple ribs, indistinct concentric lines of growth, as well as by 

 the shape of its beak and exposed foramen, but these are perhaps varietal differences only, 

 and it may be desirable to consider them as such. While comparing the British specimens 

 figured in our plate with another series from Gerolstein in the Eifel, which I had received 

 some years ago from F. Roemer, I could perceive no difference in the larger number 

 of specimens, although in one or two, being adult individuals, the dorsal valve was 

 exceedingly ventricose, while the ventral one was convex. It may therefore be as well to 

 provisionally retain the term Jlabellata for the shell under description. 



A. Jlabellata occurs in the Middle Devonian limestone of Woolborough quarry, near 

 Newton Abbot. 



Family— RHYNCHONELLIDiE. 



Genus — Rhynchonella, Fischer. 

 Rhynchonella acuminata, Martin (sp.). PI. XIII, figs. 1 — 4 ; 5 ?. 



Conchyliolithus anomites ACCMiNATUS, Martin. Petrif. Derb., pi. xxxii, figs. 7, 8 ; 



and pi. xxxiii, figs. 5, 6, 1809. 

 Terebbatula acuminata, Phillips. Pal. Foss. of Devon, &c, p. 88, pi. xxxv, fig. 



159, 1841. 



Hemithyris — 31' Coy. British Palaeozoic Fossils, p. 380, 1852. 



Rhynchonella pugnus, Sandberger (not of Martin). Die Brachiopoden des Rnei- 



niscben Scbichtensystems in Nassau, p. 42, pi. xxxiii, fig. 



6, 1855. 



This species being fully described at p. 93 of our Monograph of ' British Carboniferous 

 Brachiopoda,' it will not be necessary to reproduce the details there given, and all we 

 need now mention is that the species with its characteristic shapes occurs in the Middle 

 Devonian limestone at Woolborough quarry, near Newton Abbot, as well as in that from 

 the neighbourhood of Torquay, &c. Mhynchonella acuminata has also been found in beds 

 of a similar age in Nassau, and in one or two other localities. The presence of this shell 

 in the Devonian limestone of Devonshire has been recorded by Phillips, and admitted to 

 be Devonian as well as Carboniferous by M. de Verneuil in his descriptions of the fossils 

 in the older deposits of the Rhenish Provinces, p. 391. In addition to the above-named 

 localities, Prof. M'Coy states that the shell is not uncommon in the Middle Devonian 

 limestone of Plymouth, and that the Atrypa triangularis of Sowerby (' Geol. Trans.,' 2nd 

 ser., vol. v, t. 54, fig. 9) is a syuonym of the var. Mesogonia, " has the apex of the sinus 



