CARBONICOLA AQUILINA. 73 



February 5th, 1834, arid on April 13th and 27th, 1836. The Assistant-Secretary, 

 Mr. L. Belinfante, B.Sc, has kindly looked up the original minutes of these 

 Meetings, and he finds with regard to the Meeting on February 5th, 1834, the 

 following entry : — " The author concludes his memoir with some observations on 

 the fossils . . . of 18 genera of shells which he enumerates; 12 are marine." 

 In the minute for April 27th, 1836, is found — " The fossils of the coal-measures 

 are described with great detail." This evidence I take to be conclusive as to the 

 priority of the name aquilina over atrata. I endeavoured to obtain accurate 

 information as to the character of Goldfuss's shells, but Professor Schliiter of 

 Bonn, where the originals are said to have been placed, writes me that they have 

 either disappeared or are so fragmentary as to be unrecognisable. 



I have come to the conclusion that the shell figured by Sowerby as Unio 

 phaseolus is only a very young form of G. aquilina. The original figure agrees 

 very closely with the shell figured on PI. X, 19 to 42, a series of casts intended 

 to show stages of growth, from the roof of the Hard Mine seam, North Stafford- 

 shire, in which bed the shell occurs in hundreds, the majority of the specimens 

 being casts of perfect examples. Its anterior end is shown to be very small in 

 the original figure, a condition which is shown specially in PI. X, figs. 26, 33, 40. 

 There can be, I think, little or no hesitation in referring Captain Brown's three 

 species, Pachyodon or Unio lateralis, bipennis, and sulcatus, to G. aquilina. The 

 figures of Pachyodon and Unio lateralis are those of a cast which shows the 

 characteristically shaped anterior end, and are closely resembled by PI. X, fig. 36. 

 The figures of Pachyodon and Unio sulcatus show the obliquity of the lines of 

 growth and anteriorly directed umbones, and agree in general shape with the 

 deeper forms of G. aquilina, PI. X, figs. 15, 16, 17, and 20, from Whitley; but the 

 figures of Pachyodon and Unio bipennis have the characteristic features of 

 G. aquilina, and evidently belong to that form which possesses a blunt truncated 

 posterior end, as PI. IX, figs. 2, 3, and 31 ; PL X, figs. 20 and 23. 



Professor King says, in his remarks on his new species Anthracosia Beaniana, 

 " This species has some resemblance to Brown's Pachyodon bipennis, but it differs 

 from the latter notably in the anterior end being much shorter," a character 

 which a study of my figures on Pis. IX and X will show not to be of specific value. 

 The description is very meagre, consisting of " Diagnosis : Oval, very inequilateral. 

 Umbones small; valves thin, rather tumid, and marked with nearly obsolete 

 wrinkles," which, unfortunately, gives no very definite characteristics. Figures 

 only of the inner surface of the shell are given ; but in these the obliquity of the 

 lines of growth curving over the posterior slope into the groove along the edge of 

 the valve are markedly shown. The originals cannot be traced, unless some 

 fragments in the Science Museum, Newcastle-on-Tyne, which Mr. Howse tells me 

 are labelled in Professor King's handwriting, represent them. One of these 



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