244 



F. CHAPMAN. 



NOTE ON AN OSTRACOD, AND AN OSTRACODAL 



LIMESTONE FROM THE MIDDLE DEVONIAN 



OP NEW SOUTH WALES. 



By Frederick Chapman, a.l.s., f.r.m.s., 



Palaeontologist to the National Museum, Melbourne. 



(Communicated by W. S. Dun.) 



With Plate IX. 



[Received December 16th, 1913.] 



Introduction. 

 There is no doubt that with careful search the group of 

 the Ostracoda will be found to be well represented in the 

 Devonian rocks of Australia. Up to the present there 

 appears to be only one authenticated example recorded 

 from that system, viz., Primitia cuneus, Chapman, 1 from 

 the Middle Devonian of Buchan. Thin slices of limestone 

 of Middle Devonian age from various localities which I have 

 examined from time to time have shown traces of those 

 organisms. It follows, therefore, that our scanty know- 

 ledge of the group from strata of Devonian age is due to 

 want of careful search after these minute fossils, especially 

 amongst disintegrated limestone. 



The isolated specimen now to be described, was presented 

 to the National Museum collection by Mr. A. J. Shearsby, 

 f.r.m.s., who collected it at Taemas, near Yass. It belongs 

 to the genus Primitia, which has a wide range, from the 

 Silurian to the Carboniferous in other parts of the World. 



The second record, of a patch of ostracodal limestone 

 found within an Orthoceras shell, also from the Yass dis- 

 trict, is extremely interesting, showing as it does, that 



x Rec. Geol. Surv. Vict., Vol. in, pt. 2, 1912, p. 221, pi. xxxvi, f. 10-12. 



