Mem. Nat. Mus. Vict., X, 1936. 
GRAPTOLITES OF VICTORIA: A LOWER 
ORDOVICIAN MONOGRAPTUS PROM BENDIGO. 
By R. A. Keble, F.G.S., 
Paleontologist , National Museum. 
(Plate XVII.) 
A specimen, unique to Victoria, lias been found at Bendigo 
by Mr. Frank Chambers, of the Geological Survey. It occurs 
on a slab of soft blue shale and consists of a flat spiral poly- 
pary with the family characters of the Monograptidae. The 
associated graptolites are Tet rag rapt us fruticosus (3 br.) 
J. Hall, very common and well preserved, and several other 
species common to Zone B2. The horizon is, therefore, Lower 
Ordovician, Bendigo Series. It is remarkable that a Mono- 
graptid should now be found in such an association for the 
first time at Bendigo where intensive collecting has been in 
progress for thirty years and tens of thousands of identifica- 
tions have been made. 
The family Monograptidae, erected by Lapworth (4) in 
1873, comprises unilateral Graptolitoidea, with a polypary 
simple or compound, straight or curved, with thecae varied in 
form, growing upward in a single linear series along the line 
of the virgula. It embraces the genus Monograptus erected by 
Geinitz (3) in 1852 and characterized by a simple polypary, 
with thecae consisting of cylindrical, conical or somewhat flat- 
tened tubes, in contact, overlapping, or becoming more or less 
isolate, with straight or curved walls and apertural margins 
variable in form, plain or ornamented. In the majority of 
species the polypary is distinctly curved (see Elies and Wood, 
2), and in a few the curvature is excessive and continuous, 
the polypary being coiled into a plain spiral ( M . convolutus ) 
or a conical helix (31. turriculatus) . 
In the Bendigo specimen, the polypary is not well preserved. 
Only the portion which has been laterally compressed shows 
indistinctly the character of the thecae; the rest has been 
compressed along the dorsal margin, which probably accounts 
for the varying width of the polypary. The sicula is hidden 
from view by an overlying graptolite, T. fruticosus J. Hall. 
The flat spiral polypary and thecae growing upwards in a 
single linear series leave no other alternative than to place 
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