-52S The American Geologist. May, 1894 
described this fossil as a moll u scan shell and placed it under 
the gasfcropo'dous family Phortdce, he indicated in his descrip- 
tion its affinities with certain annelidan tubes, especially as 
evinced by the shell in its immature condition, before any 
part of the whorls becomes wholly free from its host. Paul 
Fischer, also, though allowing the genus to remain in close as- 
sociation with Xenophora, speaks emphatically of its annelidan 
affinities, at the same time suggesting that many of the Ver- 
metida> are similarly attached by the apex.* 
That the Swedish author finally surrendered his opinion of 
the molluscan nature of the shell may be inferred from the 
appearance of Autodetus catyptratus among the Annelida, in 
a "List of the Fossil Faunas of Sweden : II, Upper Silurian, 
isss." page 6.f 
Until the publication by the writer of a preliminary list of 
some Lower Oriskany fossils from Columbia county, N. Y.,t 
the genus Autodetus (we prefer to employ this name as little 
doubt can be entertained that the fossils are worm-tubes, and 
the use of Quenstedt's Anticalyptrata woidd perpetuate the 
conception of their molluscan affinities) had not been re- 
corded as occurring in American faunas. There are, however, 
two species of the genus known in the New York faunas, one 
occurring in the Lower Oriskany fauna of Becraft's Mt. (A. 
beecheri), the other in the Hamilton shales (A. lindstrosmi). 
In noting the continuance of this generic type from the Si- 
lurian into the Devonian faunas the opportunity is afforded 
of adding something to what has been known of the struc- 
ture of these bodies. 
The shells have the form of a truncated cone, whose exter- 
ior is smooth, seldom showing any trace of the internal coil, 
though covered with a tine undulose and sometimes rugose 
concentric striation. The apical extremity is flattened into a 
broad cicatrix of attachment, which sometimes has one-half 
*Manuel de Conchyliologie, p. 760, 1887. It may he observed thai 
Jackson states (Phytogeny of the Pelecypoda, p. 320) thai in young Ver- 
untiix the shell is regularly coiled and unattached, deflection of curva- 
ture in ilif whorls taking place onlj after attachment has been effected. 
[■"Edited by the palaeontological department of the Swedish State 
Museum." 
|:Notice of a new Oriskany fauna in Columbia county, N. V.. by C. E. 
Beecher; with an annotated list of Fossils, by J. M. C. Amer. Jour. 
Science, Vol. xi.iv. pp. 110-414, Nov.. 1892. 
