The subfamilies Thecidiinæ, Dall, and Leptodinæ, Schuchert, constitute the family Thecidiidæ, Gray, which is regarded by Schuchert as a near relation of the Strophomenidæ. The chief external characters of the Thecidiinæ are the smallness of the shells, the absence of the foramen, attachment by the ventral valve, the presence of a nearly straight hinge-line and of a prominent area with a solid deltidium. The shell substance, with the exception of the deltidium, is punctate. Internally the ventral valve bears in its hollow beak a small edian septum on which is sometimes superposed a small muscular plate. The dorsal valve bears a so-called cardinal process, formed by the median union of the socket ridges, and this plate is strong, subrectangular, and hollow at its base, and projects beyond the hinge. In most of the genera two lateral spurs unite mesially to form a bridge just in front of the cardinal process, over the visceral cavity. There are no free brachial arms, but the brachial supports are represented by an anterior septum, frequently branched, and lamellae rising from the floor of the valve in the spaces between the septum and its branches, the margins, and the bridge. The septum runs back from the anterior margin towards the bridge, and like the margins and the bridge, is more or less covered with granulations.

Fossil remains in the Coniston Grit Series in the Lake District are generally so scarce, except in the flaggy beds exposed in the quarry near Latrigg on Applethwaite Common, that considerable interest attaches to the discovery, made in January of the present year, of a bed which is highly fossiliferous, in a quarry recently opened in connexion with the drainage works of Bowness and indermere. The quarry is close to the shore of the lake, near the outh-west corner of the Calgarth estate.