XI. Notes on the Carboniferous Brachiopoda, with Revised List of the Genera and Species

Abstract

In the present paper I offer a report to the Society on our present knowledge regarding the genera of Carboniferous Brachiopoda found in Scotland, with remarks on their shell-structure and other external and internal characters; also a revised list of the Scottish species, as determined by the late Dr. Davidson and printed in vol. 5, part 3, of his “Monograph of the British Fossil Brachiopoda,” for the Palaeontographical Society, London, 1884. During the period of time embraced in the researches of Dr. Davidson, in connection with this monograph, extending from 1851 to 1884, an immense amount of knowledge has been gained not only of the genera and species of the Brachiopoda found within British strata, but likewise of those found in other countries of the world, as well as of those still living in recent seas. In the preface to the first volume of his work, 1853, Dr. Davidson writes thus of the group:—“Of all the species composing the sub-kingdom mollusca, none are, perhaps, more varied, more elegant in shape, or more abundantly distributed than those to which the term Brachiopoda or Palliobranchiata has been applied. They are found in the oldest deposits at present known to contain vestiges of animal life, and have continued to exist, some in similar, but many under different shapes to the existing forms, through the long successive periods which lead to the present time. Their full value to the geologist is consequently very great; and, as they so frequently fall under his hammer where This 250-word extract was created in the absence of an abstract