Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 2009
In the course of conversation with Professor J. Park, the Director of our School of Mines. I first heard of the occurrence of a gigantic pedunculated Cirripede in certain Tertiary deposits on the east coast of the North Island of this colony. I then wrote to Mr. T. F. Cheeseman, the Curator of the Auckland Museum, in which some remains were exhibited: in answer to my request, Mr. Cheeseman very generously loaned me these remains, and the following notes are founded on them. I will here express my thanks to this gentleman for the readiness with which he has, in this and other instances, complied with my request for the loan of specimens out of his museum. But these few fragments do not represent all that is known of the animal; for I understand that abundant material, collected by Professor Park during his geological survey, is entombed in boxes in the Colonial Museum at Wellington, and Professor Thomas, of Auckland, also possesses, as he informs me, a fair supply of valves, collected by himself.
I have, however, not been able to examine either of these collections. And although the present contribution is very incomplete, yet I hope that it will stimulate the possessors of better material to supplement or correct my remarks; at any rate, it will serve to direct the attention of European geologists and zoologists to the existence in late geologic times of a Cirripede remarkable chiefly for its gigantic size, far surpassing any member of the group hitherto, known to science.
page 111 note 1 Trans. N.Z. Institute, vol. xx, p. 440.
page 111 note 2 Geological Reports (N.Z. Government), 1887, p. 225.
page 111 note 3 Hutton: Trans. N.Z. Institute, vol. xxxii, p. 171.
page 115 note 1 “A Monograph on the Fossil Lepadidæ”: Palæont. Soc., 1851.
page 115 note 2 “A Monograph on the sub-class Cirripedia (Lepadidæ)”: Ray Soc., 1851.
page 116 note 1 There is one exception, Sc. magnum, in which, however, the umbo is not terminal as it is in the rest, and as it is, in all probability, in our fossil.
page 117 note 1 Hoek: “The Cirripedia (Systematic Part),” Challenger Reports, 1883, viii.