﻿246 DEVONIAN FAUNA. 



Some of these have rather more sloping sides, but others, except that they are 

 larger and better specimens, seem exactly like it. 



The Lummaton fossil also agrees so perfectly with the figure which Schlotheim 

 gives of his Helicites priscus as evidently to be specifically identical with it. It 

 does not seem clear from Schlotheim's description whether that was a Devonian or 

 a Carboniferous shell. If the latter, it is simply a synonym of Eu. Dionysii ; but 

 d'Orbigny regards it as Devonian, and quotes it from Paffrath, and if that be 

 the case I think we are obliged to regard the Woodwardian fossil as an example of 

 Schlotheim's, and therefore of de Montfort's species. 



Schlotheim's two other species are certainly Carboniferous fossils which are 

 identical with Eu. Dionysii. 



Again, our English fossil appears to be so like Eaomphalus heliciformis, Miinster, 

 that there can be little room for doubt that, although the body-whorl certainly 

 seems wider, it also is the same shell. 



Eu. Isevis, var. turritus, Sandberger, is a little more elevated, but it clearly corre- 

 sponds with it, and must be regarded as a synonym. 



Eu. vortex, Eichwald, on the other hand, has a slightly lower spire, a wider and 

 deeper suture, and rather more slowly increasing whorls, which are more trans- 

 versely oval in section. Thus it varies from Eu. Dionysii in the opposite direction 

 to Sandberger's shell, but it still comes so close that I am very much inclined to 

 regard it as identical. 



Cirrus rotundatus and Eu. ophirensis are quoted as Carboniferous synonyms 

 upon the authority of de Koninck. 



Affinities. — The Devonian shell differs from Eu. circularis, Phillips, in having 

 much more numerous and slowly increasing whorls, and generally a higher spire. 

 From En. Isevis it is distinguished by its coiling being distinctly conical, and more 

 definite and regular than it is in that shell. There is certainly just a possibility 

 of its proving to be identical with that shell, especially as it bears upon its 

 surface suspicious-looking fractures which might perhaps be supposed to indicate 

 agglutinations. But even if this were so, it would of course still remain a question 

 whether PI. Isevis, d'Arch. and de Vera., should on that account be merged into 

 de Montfort's shell. This is very unlikely, but it could only be finally solved by 

 the discovery of more numerous and better English specimens, or by the examina- 

 tion of a larger number of foreign examples than those to which I have myself 

 bad access. 



