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IV.—A Revision of the British Graptolites, with Descriptions of the New Species, and Notes on their Affinities1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

Wm. Carruthers
Wm. Carruthers
Affiliation:
Botanical Department, British Museum.
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Extract

It is of the first importance in Natural History to adopt a precise, and if possible a received terminology, and strictly to adhere to it. From the very different opinions that have been entertained regarding the nature of graptolites, a curiously mixed set of terms have been employed on their description, some being suggested by their supposed resemblance to plants, others being obtained from their affinities to animals. Discarding these I shall employ the terminology proposed by Allmann and Huxley for the Hydrozoa now generally adopted, asking the reader to take here for granted what I hope presently to establish, that these fossils have their nearest allies in this class, and consequently that the terminology is suited equally to both. As the terms, however, have not yet been generally introduced into text books, it is perhaps desirable to give definitions of those that I shall have to use in this paper.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 5 , Issue 44 , February 1868 , pp. 64 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1868

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Footnotes

1

As the chief purpose of this paper is to describe the new species noticed inthe list I supplied to the recently published edition of “Siluria,” along with others not referred to there, and to give the reasons for the changes introduced, I shall freely use the communications I made to Sir Rod. I. Murchison, as well as two papers printed by me in the “Intellectual Observer,” vol. ix. p. 283 and 365. I may be allowed to refer readers interested in these fossils to these papers and to the note in “Siluria,” for observations which are here summarized or entirely omitted.

References

page 65 note 1 Allmann in Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Hist., 05 1864, p. 350.Google Scholar

page 67 note 1 Dr. Nicholson summarily dismisses the Polyzoa by asserting that they “have, as a rule, a more or less calcareous test, and the individuals forming the compound organism are not united by any organised connecting substance.” Perhaps a common circulation in the basal tube is not, in Dr. Nicholson's opinion, an “organised connecting substance,” and Gray and Busk may be ignorant of the true nature of the Polyzoan test.

page 69 note 1 We suppose Dr. Nicholson will allow this, for in a sentence a little before that we have quoted from, he tells us that the minute corneous germ he describes is “the primitive structure of the embryo,” in imagination, that is, for he immediately adds “it must, in fact, be considered very probable that these germs, as we see them, are considerably advanced in growth, andthat the earliest form of the embryo was devoid of any corneous test.”