BUFFALO SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCES g 
as separate species the upper and inferior surfaces of the same 
form. His new genus was erected to receive teeth of various 
forms, some of which apparently belonged in various genera 
established by Pander, and which, from the circumstance of their 
having been found associated together on a slab of shale, Dr. 
Hinde assumed to belong to one individual. This assumption, 
however, does not take into consideration the possibility that the 
deposit may have been the ejecta of fishes, and leads to confusion 
in the classification. 
Professor Owen in the second edition of his “Palaeon- 
tology” had expressed the opinion that Conodonts have most 
analogy with the spines, or hooklets, or denticles of naked Mol- 
lusks or Annelids. Dr. Hinde in dissenting says: “In the 
Cambro-Silurian rocks the fossils of marine invertebrates are 
very varied and abundant but there are no large Gastropods 
whose lingual teeth could be supposed to be similar to Conodonts, 
nor the carapaces and segments of any Crustaceans to which 
they could have been attached as defensive spines. In the 
Devonian strata where the Conodonts are much more numerous 
and diversified in form than in the lower rocks, the only inverte- 
brate fossils accompanying them are Crinoids and Brachyopods ; 
but there are here plenty of fragments of undisputed fish teeth 
and bones. That, however, the Conodonts cannot be referred to 
the horny jaws of Annelids may be conclusively shown by the 
discovery by the writer of these Annelidan structures in the 
same strata with Conodonts, from which the former can be 
readily distinguished by their chemical composition and _ their 
resemblance to the jaws of existing Annelids.” 
Dr. Hinde reasons against the probability of Conodonts having 
been the teeth of naked Mollusks and concludes by referring 
them provisionally to some low type of fishes similar to the 
existing Myxinoids. As to the microscopic structure, he corrob- 
orates the results obtained by Pander. “I can detect the same 
delicate conical lamellar structure both in the specimens from 
the Chazy and in some of those from the Devonian; in other 
Devonian specimens, however, the basal portion appears to be 
homogenous and without structure, whilst the teeth imbedded in 
this base have either a clouded fibrous appearance, or seem to be 
composed of minute nuclei, as represented by Pander (Monog. 
TabeZ On shiresenl beal2))ae 
