76 
PALEONTOLOGY OF NEW YORK. 
should these differences prove of generic importance, I propose for them the 
name Meristella.” In the report for the following year (pp. 74, 75, published 
in 1860), the name was formally defined, and the distinction of the group from 
Merista was based upon the absence of the shoe-lifter process. Much of the 
discussion in this place involved comparisons with the Atrypa tumida of Dalman, 
and as no type-species was definitely cited, some authors have regarded the 
Swedish species as the type of Mer[STElla. Such, however, was not the inten¬ 
tion of the argument, and it was definitely so stated in a subsequent paper.* 
Athrypa tumida had been placed by Mr. Davidson, first in a list of the typical 
representatives of the genus Merista,! and opportunity was taken in this place 
of demonstrating its similarity to Suess’s type, M. herculea, Barrande, but with¬ 
out the expression of an opinion as to its homogeneity with the species there 
cited in the list of examples of Meristella, viz.: “ Meristella Icevis, M. bella and 
M. arcuata, of the Lower Helderberg group; M. cylindrica and M. oblata, of the 
Niagara and Clinton groups.” 
In the printing of the Thirteenth Report some changes were made in the 
matter relating to this genus after a very few of the pages had been struck off. 
As some of these first impressions fell into the hands of certain authors and 
elicited some degree of criticism, it seemed desirable to reproduce these pages 
in their original condition. This was done in the Fifteenth Annual Report of 
the New York State Cabinet of Natural History (pp. 178-181). In this place 
Meristella was erroneously made synonymous with Liorhynchus, the types 
quoted being Atrypa quadricosta, and A. multicosta, of the Hamilton group. This 
publication is void, and is referred to here only because of its having unfortu¬ 
nately introduced an element of confusion into the literature of this genus. 
In the fourth volume of the Palaeontology of New York (1867, pp. 295—299), 
Meristella was more elaborately described and the complicated structure of 
the loop demonstrated and illustrated from silicified specimens of M. arcuata. 
The statement is there made, and has been subsequently confirmed, that the 
structure of this organ in Meristella lezvis, which was the type-species in the 
description of 1860, is the same as that in M. arcuata. 
* Twentieth Kept. State Cabinet (1867): On the Genera Athyris, Merista and Meristella, p. 264. 
t Introduction to British Fossil Brachiopoda, p. 87. 
