340 



Brachiopoda. 



(By I. Hayasaka.) 

 Spiriferidse. 



Spirifer, Sow. 

 Spirifer disjunctus Sovverby var. 



I. General Remarks on Spirifer disjunctus Sovverby. 



In his monumental work on the fossil Brachiopods of Britain Davidso.v 

 includes a large number of" species " under the name of Spirifer disjunctus 

 Sovverby. He regards some of them as identical with, and some others as 

 mere variations of, this species proposed by Sowerby as early as in 1840. 

 At that time there had been another name given to a form which subsequently 

 was considered to be synonymous with Spirifer disjunctus, viz., Spirifer 

 verneuili ; this name was used by Murchison in the same year that Sovverby 

 published his Sp. disjunctus. Thus it is no easy matter to decide which of 

 the two later palaeontologists ought to follow, unless the priority of the 

 papers is ascertained. 



Spirifer disjunctus was used by Davidson in his monograph, while 

 Murchison's denomination was accepted by Gosselet, Scupin and Kayser 

 among those who wrote more or less comprehensive or voluminous papers. 

 Other writers follow either Sowerby's or Murchison's nomenclature in their 

 works ; these papers will be cited in the following pages, so they are not 

 -mentioned here. 



Priority of nomenclature in this case is so difficult a thing to decide that 

 Gosselet, in his paper devoted seven pages to " Historique et discussion des 

 noms." The reason why he preferred Murchison's denomination is suggested 

 in the following words of his. " En resum^, la question d'anteriorite ne pou- 

 vant pas etre resolue, ou etant au moins bien discutable, on doit choisir comme 

 autorite entres les bonnes figures et les bonnes descriptions de Murchison ou 

 les mauvaises figures de Sowerby, dont une seule est a peine deter- 

 minable et qui ne sont accompanees que de quelques mots de diagnose, ou 

 Ton ne trouve meme pas mentionne le caractere fondamental de I'espece, 

 ,1a simplicite des cotes sur les ailes." He did not, however, reach 



