NOTES ON COLORED LINGUL/E— SILURIAN. 



Read before the Hamilton Association, gth May, 1889. 

 BY COLONEL GRANT. 



Among the oldest forms of "organic life," known both in Europe 

 and this continent, are the brachiopods called "Lingular" or "tongue 

 shells." 



Found in rocks from "The Lower Cambrians" — inclusive — 

 upwards, partaking both of the nature of a " Mollusc " and " Anne- 

 lid," surviving all changes, their fossilized remains present to the 

 chemist the same phosphatic constituents as the modern shell when 

 subjected to chemical analysis. 



There has been no advance, and seemingly no degradation since 

 they first appeared in the " Primeval Seas " — a remarkable fact, as the 

 family approaches, in modern times, probably, extinction. Any 

 one who has examined the valves of a modern Lingula (L. Anatina 

 of the Philippines, for instance) must be struck with the close 

 resemblance this Phosphatic Brachiopod bears to its fossil 

 predecessors of our local Silurian. This, and a different species 

 (said to be brought from Carolina) are the only ones I have ever 

 seen, although others, perhaps, are known to conchoiogists. 



"Observations," remarks the author of Manual of the Mollusca 

 "are much wanted on the living Lingular. The oral arms, probably, 

 extended as far as the margin of the shell. The pedicle is often 9 

 inches long in preserved specimens, and is doubtless much longer 

 and contractile when alive. The shell is horny, flexible, always of 

 a Greenish color. The recent species," he adds, "have been found 

 at small depths, even low water, half buried in sand." 



As far as I know the Silurian Lingular of Hamilton are the 

 oldest colored shells yet discovered. 



The British Museum possesses a colored Nerite of the 

 " Devonian age," and the late W. H. Baily, Palaeontologist to the 

 Irish Geological Survey, informed me several years ago that they 

 had just obtained some Fossil Ferns (Carboniferous) which retained 



