206 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



Paramendax apicina, n.sp. (Plate LIV, fig. 4). 



Shell small, tall and narrow, many whorled with a curious gradate apex of about 

 three whorls, not clearly marked off from the post-nuclear whorls. Tip of protoconch 

 small, smooth, bead-like, followed by two rapidly spreading whorls that are sculptured 

 with rather wide-spaced strong axials. Adult sculpture of two rounded wide-spaced 

 spiral ridges which are crowded with strong squarish nodules, about twenty per whorl. 

 Sutures not deep, lower one having immediately above it a thin axial thread. Aperture 

 quadrate terminating below in a short open canal. End of columella strongly flexed to 

 the left. Outer lip thin and sharp. Colour pale buff. 



Height 5-4 mm. ; diameter 1-45 mm. (Holotype). 



Habitat: Off Three Kings Islands, St. 933, 260 m. 



Genus Socienna, Finlay, 1926 

 Type (original designation) : Cerithiopsis apicicostata, May 

 Socienna elegantula (Powell, 1930). 



1930 Altispecula elegantula, Powell, Trans. N.Z. Inst., lx, p. 539. 

 The genus Altispecula was proposed by the writer (loc. tit., 1930, p. 539) for a South 

 Australian deep-water shell which had strong axial ribs, only obsolete spiral sculpture 

 and a protoconch of two smooth convex whorls. The species elegantula was referred to 

 this genus, as the post-nuclear sculpture was somewhat similar and what little of the 

 damaged protoconch that remained seemed to be smooth. However, it now appears that 

 the apex must have been worn, for perfect examples from the dredgings of the ' Dis- 

 covery II ' (St. 933) show a tall and narrow protoconch of three whorls, the top bluntly 

 rounded, all but the first whorl sculptured with regularly spaced thin axial ribs, having 

 interstices of about three times the width of the ribs. The first whorl of the protoconch 

 is sculptured with microscopic closely spaced spiral series of granules and the next two 

 have a pair of fine peripheral threads. The protoconch is closely similar to that of my 

 Seilarex exaltatus (loc. cit., 1930, p. 538), a species considered by Finlay (1930, Trans. 

 N.Z. Inst., lxi, p. 230) to be better placed in his Socienna. I have since described an- 

 other Socienna with predominant axials, in my S. aureola (1933, Rec. Cant. Mus., IV, 

 P- 38). 



Family TRIPHORIDAE 



Genus Notosinister, Finlay, 1926 



Type (original designation): Triphora fascelina, Suter 



Notosinister aupouria, n.sp. (Plate LIV, fig. 2). 



Shell small, slender, rather fragile. Whorls fourteen, including a typical polygyrate 

 protoconch of five whorls, having a sharp median carina crossed by closely spaced fine 

 axial threads. Spire tall, a little more than five times height of aperture. Outline very 

 slightly convex, lower part of spire cylindrical but gradually tapered above to the sharp 

 pointed protoconch. Upper six post-nuclear whorls with two keels; succeeding four 



