COILOSTELE. 339 



Nothing is known of the life history or soft parts. The baleful 

 influence of the "nouvelle ecole" authors impedes the study 

 of the species, which have been unduly multiplied on trivial 

 grounds. In the absence of a large series from Seville, I 

 am unable to say to what extent the Spanish species vary in 

 sculpture. Bourguignat divides the genus into three groups, 

 according to the sculpture. The known forms fall into these 

 groups as follows. 



Smooth : scalaris, africana, agyptiaca, acus, l&vigata, 

 castroiana, hispanica. 



Striate : paladilhiana, isseli, stenostoma, bourguignati, 

 servaini, tumidula. 



Ribbed: letourneuxiana, raphidia, cylindrata, tampicoensis. 



A single Eocene species is known, Coelostele eocaena Oppen- 

 heim, from the Val dei Mazzini, Italy. It seems to be quite 

 a typical Coilostele in all respects, and is of high interest as 

 showing the genus to have been one of those probably de- 

 veloped in the Mesozoic European archipelago, like the 

 ancestral Clausiliida and Megaspiridce. (See Oppenheim, 

 Zeitschr. d. Deutsch. Geol. Gesellsch. vol. 47, 1895, p. 119, 

 pi. 3, fig. 10). 



The name Coilostele, hollow pillar, is in allusion to the ab- 

 sence of internal partitions in the species examined by Ben- 

 son, verified by me in C. tampicoensis. 



Asiatic and East African Species. 



1. C. SCALARIS Benson. PI. 50, fig. 3. 



Shell imperf orate, long-cylindric, smooth, hyaline, glossy; 

 spire long, gradually tapering, scalariform; apex obtuse; 

 suture deep. Whorls 6, a little convex, obtusely angular 

 above, the penultimate whorl cylindric. Aperture suboblique, 

 semiovate, subpirif orm ; peristome thin, unexpanded, the mar- 

 gins remote; columellar margin a little thickened, provided 

 with an oblique, long, spiral entering fold above. Length 

 3, diam. scarcely 1 mm.; aperture 0.66x0.5 mm. (Bens.). 



India: Betwa river, in sand; Jumna river opposite 

 Humearpore (Benson) ; Ganges river drift (Hutton) ; Sind 

 (Blanford). 



