SECT I ON T . 



BRACHIOPOBA OF THE MIOCENE MARLS OF NEW JERSEY. 



A single species only of this group of shells has been obtained or 

 noticed from these formations within the limits of the State. The form, a 

 Discina, appears to be quite abundant in the marls at several of the locali- 

 ties, but so far none but upper valves have been obtained, not the least 

 part of a lower valve being found so far as could be detected. The 

 absence of this class of animal life in these Miocene deposits is not so 

 remarkable when one takes into consideration the fact that there is almost 

 as complete an absence of them in all the American Atlantic Tertiary 

 deposits, and but very few even in the older Cretaceous deposits over the 

 same areas. To be sure, in the Cretaceous there is, through a portion of 

 New Jersey, a superabundance of individuals of two of the species — Tere- 

 bratula Harlani and Terebratella plicata— -but in species even these deposits 

 are remarkably deficient, only six species probably being known in the 

 Cretaceous within the State, one of which, 1\ Atlantica, is quite doubtfully 

 of Cretaceous age. 



Class BRACHIOPODA. 



Order INAKTKTLATA. 



Family DISGINID^]. 

 Genus DISC IN" A Lamarck. 



Discina lugubkis. 



Plate i, ii£s. 1-3. 



Capulus lugubris Conrad: Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci., vol. 7, p. 143. 

 Orbicula lugubris Conrad: Medial Tert. loss., p. 75, PI. xliii, fig. 2. 

 Discina lugubris (Conrad) Meek: Smith. Check list, p. 3. 



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