Description of Some New Siluric 

 Gastropods. 



BY MARJORIE O'CONNELL, A. M. 



About a year and a half ago while examining the entire 

 collection of fossils from the Bertie Waterlime exhibited in the 

 Museum of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, my attention 

 was called by Professor A. W. Grabau to a number of specimens 

 which appeared to belong to the gastropod genus Hercynella. 

 With the view of making a more careful determination of these 

 specimens I have, through the kindness of Mr. Henry R. 

 Howland, Superintendent of the Buffalo Society, had the 

 specimens sent to me for closer study and comparison with some 

 of the type material of the Bohemian forms of Hercynella 

 presented to the Palaeontological Museum of Columbia University 

 by Professor J. Perner of Prague. 



Since Hercynella is practically unknown from this country, 

 a general description of the genus and its distribution will be 

 given before considering the new species. The generic name 

 Hercynella was proposed by Emanuel Kayser in 1878 for certain 

 pulmonate gastropods, ranging from Middle Siluric (E 2) through 

 Middle Devonic (G 3) in age. Barrande had discovered this 

 fauna in Bohemia, and, identifying his forms with the living 

 genus Pilidium Forbes, created the genus Pilidion, of which he 

 recognized two species P. bohemicum, a high cone and P. nobile, 

 a flat one. Barrande used this name Pilidion in his manuscript 

 as early as 1865 and it appeared in print in 1868 in the Thesaurus 

 Siluricus of Bigsby to which author Barrande had himself 

 communicated the name. Furthermore, the name Pilidion 

 appeared in Barrande's own handwriting on the labels sent with 

 duplicate material to various museums, so that the authenticity of 

 the name cannot be denied. That it has been replaced in the 

 literature by the name Hercynella which was proposed some 

 thirteen years later for the same species, is due to the fact that 

 Kayser considered that Barrande had been mistaken in identify- 

 ing the Bohemian gastropods, which are asymmetric, with the 

 recent Pilidium which is symmetric. Perner who has continued 



