TEREBRATULA. 45 



41. Terebratula punctata, Sow. Plate VI, figs. 1 — 6. 



Terebratula punctata, Sow. Min. Con., 1812, vol. i, p. 46, tab. 15, fig. 4. 

 — — Morris. Catalogue, 1843. 



Diagnosis. Shell inequivalved, depressed, convex ; beak small, not much recurved, 

 truncated by an entire foramen of moderate size ; deltidium in two pieces ; beak ridge 

 soon lost ; margin line curved and slightly raised in front ; surface smooth and minutely 

 punctuated ; loop short, attached only to crura, and extending to little more than a third 

 of the length of the valve. Length 16, width 12, depth 7 lines. 



Obs. No species has perhaps given more trouble to make out than the one under 

 consideration, being difficult to characterise from its variations in form, particularly if we 

 examine a number of specimens. It seems nearly connected to the following form, 

 which we have separated, as it presents certain differences sufficiently constant to render it 

 desirable to preserve both under distinct names, and I do so the more readily, as it is also 

 the opinion of M. Bouchard, Mr. Moore, and others, who likewise examined the subject 

 with some attention ; nor am I astonished that foreign Palaeontologists have been unable to 

 recognise this species. Lamarck quotes it in 1819, but on the inspection of shells he had 

 placed under that name, I found none belonging to the species. Von Buch considered it 

 a synonym of ornithocephala ; Professor Brown places it under both ornitliocephala and 

 carnea (vide Index) ; and M. D'Orbigny, more cautiously, leaves it out entirely in his 

 ' Prodrome ;' still it is quite distinct from either of the shells to which it has been considered 

 a synonym, which is perfectly proved by the size, length, and form of its loop, differing com- 

 pletely from that of Ter. carnea, where it extends only to a few lines from the crura, while 

 in T. ornithocephala it nearly reaches the frontal margin. In T. punctata, as may be seen 

 (Plate VI, fig. 3,) from the specimen drawn from Mr. Sowerby's original type, this process 

 extends to nearly half the length of the shell, and is intermediate between that of T. carnea 

 and T. ornitliocephala, the beak and foramen being also quite different in those shells. 

 Ter. punctata is moreover a Liasic species, and, from its date, holds specific, claims of 

 priority, whatever shells may be grouped into its type or removed from it. 



The name of T. punctata was unappropriate, since all true Terebratulas are more or less 

 strongly punctuated ; it is, however, interesting to remark that this character was observed 

 so far back as 1812 by Mr. Sowerby. It belongs to the middle Lias, and is stated by that 

 author to have been found in the dark limestone of Aylesford, at a place called Horton ; 

 it was also collected in the Lias of Deddington, by Mr. C. Faulkner ; and at Dumbleton, near 

 Cheltenham, by Professor Buckman; it occurs at Farington, Gurney, and many other 

 places. Plate VI, figs. 1, 2, and 3, illustrate the original specimens, kindly lent me by 

 Mr. J. de C. Sowerby, which were figured in the ' Min. Con.' 



