﻿July, 1857.] 



ELLIOTT SOCIETY. 



229 



oped; the rostrum large in proportion to carapax, orbits almost 

 wanting, no supra-orbital ridges or spines, eyes large on short 

 peduncles, but the forms of the hands and of the tarsi quite char- 

 acteristic ; length less than a quarter of an inch. Accompanying 

 it were the specimens, four in number, of Monolepis inermis of 

 Say, mentioned in Proc. Amer. Assoc., vol. iii. p. 192. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE 13. 

 Fig. 1 — View of upper surface. Fig. 2 — View of under surface. 



The President read a letter from Prof. F. S. Holmes, tender- 

 ing his resignation as a member of the Society. 



On motion of Prof. S. H. Dickson, this resignation was ac- 

 cepted, and the President requested to fill, by appointment 

 pro tempore, until the next meeting of the Standing 

 Committee, the office of Corresponding Secretary, thus left 

 vacant. 



Prof. McCrady made the following remarks, suggesting a 

 new view as to the Zoological affinities of Graptoliteis : 



Prof. McCrady said, that he would avail himself of the means 

 afforded by this Society for making public a suggestion which he 

 had some time before made in a private letter to Prof. James Hall, 

 of Albany, the distinguished Geologist, now connected with the 

 Geological Survey of Canada. This suggestion concerned the 

 nature of those singular fossils denominated Graptolites, which 

 were found only in the Palaeozoic Rocks, though in certain of 

 these they appeared in great numbers. These fossils had been 

 first referred by Naturalists to Halcynoid Polypi in the neighbor- 

 hood of Virgularia, whence recently they had been, by some au- 

 thors, transferred to the group of Bryozoa or Molluscan Polyps, 

 and this latter view had been countenanced by some of the most 

 distinguished Naturalists in this country. 



Mr. McCrady suggested that it was quite possible here, as in 

 numerous other instances, that to a certain extent heterogeneous 

 elements had been combined in the group to which the name 

 Graptolitidse had been given. It was possible that a few of the spe- 

 cimens so called might be Hydroid Polypi, which we now class 

 with the Medusae, or even Bryozoa. But he thought that there 

 were a few considerations which made it very improbable that these 

 singular fossils belonged, in the first place, to any group of ani- 



