202 D(dl — A New Proserpimtid Land SJtcIl front BrttzU . 



full diagnosis of Cyane, that the chief character upon which 

 Adams based his genus may have been of a like nature, in which 

 case it could hardly be accounted of generic value. 



From Cyaiic, however, the present species differs in preserv- 

 ing a parietal lamella; and, as Bland, Pfeiffer and others have 

 considered differences of the arrangement and number of the 

 lamella? of the aperture as sufhcient characters for subdivisions 

 of the genus, the Brazilian sliell might l)e regarded as constitut- 

 ing the type of a section or subdivision witli those cliaracters, 

 whicli might l^e called Stti^ffnla. 



Proserpina (Staffola) derbyi sp. nov. 



Shell small, depressed, pale yellowish, when fresh probably polished, 

 with an axial sculpture of fine, non-punctate, sharply incised strife nearly 

 parallel to the increnfiental lines, hut visible only under considerable mag- 

 nification; spire depressed, domelike, tlie sutures obscure, the protoconch 

 large, followed b)' five whorls; base flattish, imperforate, not excavated in 

 the center; aperture semilunar, outer lip thin, shar]), advancing slightly 

 from thesutureand slightly excavated just before it joins the pillar ; parietal 

 wall with a single lamella about one-third of the way from the pillar to 

 the suture; periphery of the shell inflatedly rounded ; the armature of the 

 pillar has been already described ; height of shell, 2.5 ; max. diam., 5.0 ; 

 min. diam., 4.0 mm. 



The shell is in such a condition that it might be either a Pleistocene fos- 

 sil or a " dead " shell washed from a higher level and stranded by falling 

 water in the creek. 



The Proserpinidfe have hitherto been known only from the Antilles, 

 Mexico, middle America and the shores adjacent to the Caribbean, except 

 in the case of Cyane bkaidiana Adams, which was described from Eastern 

 Peru. The presence of a species in the State of Bahia is therefore a very 

 interesting addition to the knowledge of the geographi(ral distribution of 

 members of this group. Even if fossil, it carries the range 1,000 miles to 

 the south and east, and adds weight to the connection which has been 

 already insisted on between the Antillean fauna and that of the Eastern 

 portion of South America south of the Amazonas. 



