214 ON SOME TERTIARY FOSSILS. 



Pecten NoViE-GuiNEiE, Tenison-Woods. 



The types of this species 1 have compared with authentic 

 examples of P. pallium and E fail to find any distinguishing; 

 feature, not one amounting to individual variation. Tenison- 

 Woods relied on the meagre development of the scales as a specific 

 character for his new species. An examination of the two speci- 

 mens on which the species was established reveals signs that they 

 possessed scales on the ribs, which had evidently been worn down 

 before fossilisation, whilst towards the front of all the ribs scales 

 remain equal in strength to those of recent examples of the same 

 size. There is no escape from the opinion that P. Novoi-Guinece 

 is simply a somewhat worn state of a typical P. fallium. 



Peronella decagonalis. 

 I accept Ml'. Woods' identification of the fossil with the recent 

 species of this name. 



Temnechinus Macleayi, Ten. -Woods. 



This echinoid does not belong to this genus ; it has some resem- 

 blance to Paradoxechinus novus, Laube, but in my judgment it 

 has greater afl&nity with Psammechinus Woodsi, Laube, though I 

 cannot attach it to that species. I am not sufficiently familiar 

 with the recent species of that or related genera to venture a 

 specific determination, particularly also in view of the imperfection 

 of the unique specimen. 



Of the rest of the fossils, which are casts, some approximate 

 determinations are possible to the following species : — Triton 

 olearium, Linn. ; Dolium costatum, Lam. ; Stromhus Campbelli, 

 Gray, or S. vittatus, Linn. ; Corbula crassa, Hinds ; Area granosa, 

 Linn.; Lithodomus Cicmingianus, 'Reeve; Orbitolites complanatus. 



One better acquainted with the living mollusca of Torres Straits 

 than I am might approximately identify the large number of the 

 casts and moulds with living species, so impressed am I with the 

 absolutely modern facies of the fauna. The age of the deposit 

 may, for the present, be accepted as Pleistocene. 



