28 



Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



being no regularity in their form, and no uniformity in their size. In 

 specimens four lines in diameter, the calices, that occupy the center of 

 the tubercles, are from 1-Gth to l-8th of a line in diameter; the distance 

 from the center of one tubercle to the center of the next, is about one 

 line, and the average number of calices, in that distance, is about 

 twelve. Moreover, Edwards and Haime distinguished pulchella from 

 fietcheri, by the more acute angle of bifurcation of the branches in the 

 former than in the latter, while no such distinguishing character 

 could be applied to our species, as it bifurcates at all angles. Thus it 

 seems, that our species differs, more or less, in every character from 

 those ascribed to pulchella by its authors. For these reasons I do not 

 think that pulchella exists in the Cincinnati Group, and it is quite 

 evident that the corals referred to this species by Prof. Nicholson, are 

 the same that were described by Goldfuss in 1826, under the specific 

 name fibrosa. If the corals referred to do not belong to the geuus 

 Stenopora, the name, should be written Monticulip or a fibrosa instead 

 of Chetetes pulchellus and Chetetes attritus, and Monticulip or a sub- 

 pulchella instead of Chetetes subpulchellus.^' '* 



In my catalogue of American Paleozoic Fossils, p. 48, published in 

 1877, I said that I thought pulchella is not found in this country, and 

 printed it in the condemned list in italic letters. 



These remarks would be incomplete if I did not add that not only 

 did I never adopt Prof. Nicholson's identification of pulchella, but 

 that I know of no American palaeontologist who did, and that all the 

 credit of the mistaken identification and persistence in it belongs to 

 Prof. Nicholson himself. 



The application of these statements will be apparent from the follow- 

 ing quotation from his description of the same form under the new 

 name of Monticulipora (Heterotrypa) andrewsi, wherein he makes 

 the observation, that it is the species "which has generally been 

 recognized by American palaeontologists as identical with the 31. 

 pulchella, Edwards and Haime, of the Wenlock Limestone of Britain. 

 So far, in fact, as its external characters are concerned, it is very like 

 31 '. pulchella, resembling it especially in the existence of clusters of 

 thin-walled polygonal coraliites, interpersed at short intervals among 

 similarly shaped but slightly smaller tubes. In the absence, therefore, 

 of an}' accurate microscopic knowledge of the internal structure of the 

 two forms, it was almost inevitable that the}' should have been grouped 



• Cin. Quar. Jour. Sci., vol. ii., p. 353. 



