Dear Bob:

At long last here is your report on the McGrath A-5 Quad. clams from Alaska. Thank you very much for your patience, I apologize for not getting this to you sooner. I am now officially out of administration except for some left over odds-and-ends and it feels good to be back in science.

There is nothing among the McGrath pelecypods and rostroconchs which dasagrees with your Eifelian age and for the most part part they are garden variety genera which can be identified from the literature on the Appalachian Devonian. It is very difficult to evaluate Devonian pelecypod species, because almost monographic work has been done since the late nineteenth century. Most of the McGrath material is highly fragmentary and this also hurts species identification.

Indentification are as follows: (see faunal list)

Devonian rostroconchs are not well known either taxonomically or paleogeographically; the Mulceodens type were probably infaunal with the rostrum and third aperture probably projecting above the sediment-water interface.

There are very few articulated or "butterflied" specimens of pelecypods in these collections; most specimens are single valves indicating some transport. However, on some specimens the ornament is well preserved indicating that they were not transported far. As indicated above, the genera in these collections are widespread in North America, but it is not possible to make species level comparison.s