5A PERMIAN FOSSILS. 
SuB-KINGDOM ARTICULATA, Cuvier. 
The Permian epoch, so far as its Fauna is yet known, appears to have only 
witnessed two (the first and second) of the five classes, viz, Annellata, Crustacea, 
Arachnida, Insecta, and Cirrhopoda, to which the extensive group of Articulated 
animals has been divided. 
Class ANNELLATA, (Les Annélides) Cuvier. 
Audouin and Milne Edwards, the ablest writers on this class, have divided it into 
four orders, which they name Annellata suctoria, A. terricola, A. tubicola, and A. errantia, 
respectively represented by the Leech, Worm, Serpula, and Sea-mouse. Only the 
third order requires our immediate attention. 
Order TUBICOLA, Cuvier. 
The only known Permian genera of this group are the following, all of which, with 
the exception of the so-called Serpula (?) pusilla, are still in existence. 
Genus Spirorbis, Lamarck,’ 1801. 
Diagnosis.—“ Vermis tubo calcareo inclusus, branchiis pectinatis antice coronatus, 
stylo carnoso exserto in discum dilato. Tubus spiraliter contortus.’”” 
This genus, first separated from the Linnean group, Serpu/a, by Lamarck, is 
distinguished by some peculiarity in its branchial filaments, and in having a regularly 
spiral-formed orbicular shell attached by a flattened disc to foreign bodies. It is 
typified by the Serpula Spirorbis, Linn., common on our coasts. 
4 
SPIRORBIS HELIX, King. Plate VI, figs. 8, 8 a. 
SPIRORBIS HELIX, King. Catalogue, p. 6, 1848. 
— GLoBosus, M‘Coy. Howse, T. N. F. C., vol. i, p. 258, 1848. 
Diagnosis.— Horm conical. Whorls smooth, somewhat broad, numerous, overlying 
each other, and sub-umbilicated. Aperture of a crescentic shape, having its concave or 
inner lip pressed in by the underlying whorl. 
Figure 8, in Plate VI, is a magnified view of a young specimen. As the shell 
increases in size, the whorls leave the base, and rise to the summit, overlying the old 
I Systéme des Anim. sans Vertebres, &c., p. 326, 1801. 
2 Apud Schweigger, Handbuch, We., p. 601. 
