110 CONTRIBUTIONS TO CANADIAN PALEONTOLOGY. 



an intelligible generic description." The clause italicized (the italics are 

 the present writer's) if applicable to a genus ought to bo equally so to 

 a species, and if this be the case, the few remarks published about some 

 of the minute structural peculiarities of 0. Canadenis can scarcely be 

 regarded as au intelligible specitio description. 



But, in spite of Mr. Billings' contention, the majority of American 

 paleontologists seem to have rejected his genus Cyrtodonta and to have 

 adopted the earlier name CyjJficardites, Conrad, notwithstanding the 

 extremely vague and unsatisfactory definition of the characters of the 

 latter, and every naturalist knows that many of the species proposed 

 by such writers as Linna3us and Lamarck in Europe, and Eafinesque 

 and Conrad in America, are universally accepted to-day although no 

 one pretends that they could be identified from the original descrip- 

 tion. It is also only proper to add that although the shales of the 

 Hamilton Group of Ontario have been diligently examined by many 

 collectors for the last twenty years, it has yet to be shewn that they 

 have yielded more than one species of Cadaster, and further, that the 

 types of C. Canadensis have for many years been preserved in the 

 Museum of the Survey which is and always has been freely accessible 

 to all. 



Eleutherocrinus Cassedayi, Shumard and Yandell. 



Plate 14, figs. 5, 5a and 5b. 



Eleutherocrinus Cassedayi, Shumard and Yandell. 1856. Proc. Ac. Nat. Sc. Phil., 

 vol. VIII., p. 73, plate 2. 



Near Thedford, Eov. J. M. G-oodwillie, 1882 : two good and exception- 

 ally well preserved specimens, one of which (the original of the figures 

 on Plate 14) he has generously jiresentod to the Museum of the Survey. 



In reference to this latter, which he has minutely examined, Mr. 

 Wachsmuth writes : " Your specimen is most beautifully preserved, 

 especially the ambulacra which are excellentty shewn, the food grooves 

 can be followed u]i to the sockets of the pinnules. I think the anus 

 has never been described in this genus, it having been taken for a 

 mere break in the plate. Your specimen shows that it is located at the 

 right upper edge of the azygos radial, which is somewhat excavated 

 and constitutes the outer wall of the triangular aperture." 



