2IO 



? 1909- Spirifcr bisulcatus, SoMMEK : — Die Fauna des Culms von Konigs- 



berg bei Giessen. Neues Jahrb., Beil.-Bd., XXVIII., p. 632. fig. 2. 

 ?l9li. Spirifcr hisiilcatas, Fkech : — vON Richthofem's China, vol. V., 



p. 72. pi. II, fig. 2. 

 ? 191 3. Spirifcr bisulcatus, Mansuv : — Faune du Carb., inferieur du Tran- 



ninh. Mem. Serv. Geol. I'lndochine, vol. II., fasc. V., p. 32. pi. 



v., fig. 4- 



Spirifcr bisulcatus is cssentiall)' a lower Carboniferous species, although 

 it has been described in far )'ounger formations, for instance, in the Trogkofef-: 

 beds. The first record of vhis species in China is that of Frech, who described 

 it as in material collected in S!ian-tung by vox Richthofen. Frech's 

 material, however, seems to have been very poor and fragmental, so that he 

 could not give a picture of a complete example of the species. It seems to 

 the wriler that it is not c|uite safe to give any definite specific name to such 

 an incomplete fragmental fossil. The restoration that Frhcii attempted (Fig. 

 2a) is rather arbitrarv ; other palaeontologists than he might have imagined 

 the complete form of the fossil in an entirely different way. "The furrows 

 which bound the mesial fold on the upper valve are scarcely more prominent 

 in this (species! than in several others," says Phillips in his diagnosis of 

 the species. There is nothing to show this characteristic in the examples of 

 Frech. The areal aspect l^Fig. 2d) resembles that oi Spirifcr TscJiernysclicivi 

 Stuckenberg rather than that of an ordinary Spirifcr bisulcatus ; the former 

 is an upper Carboniferous species discovered at Samara, in Russia. 



A large number of specimens ol the .species the majority of which are 

 fragmental, were collected by Mr. Y. Isiai in the province of Hu-nan. They 

 were found together with several other species of Brachiopods all of which 

 represent the lower Carboniferous in Europe. Among these .specimens there 

 are several complete ones which are very well preserved and consequently 

 form the basis of the diagnosis which will follow. 



In order to distinguish Spirifcr bisulcatus from the allied forms Sp. 

 trigoualis and Sp. iiitcgricosta, Scupin, in his monograph, says that the "aus- 

 gesprochene Neigung zur Theikmg der Rippen, vor allem derjenigen auf 



