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ON THE GENUS PERRIERIA. 

 By C. Hedley, F.L.S. 



Having occasion to study the shell known to Australian 

 naturalists as Coeliaxis australis, Forbes, sp., I am surprised to 

 find that the species has no claim to that generic title. On 

 turning to Fischer's "Manuel de Conchyliologie," p. 482, the 

 type of Coeliaxis, Adams and Angas, is found misquoted as 

 C. exigua ; further search, however, shows that the authors of 

 that genus instituted not exigita, but layardi as their type. 



The preface (P.Z.S. 1867, p. 907) to the description of C. 

 exigua, clearly indicating that "the species upon which Coeliaxis 

 was founded " was the African C. layardi, Adams and Angas, 

 runs as follows : — 



" In a paper read at the meeting of the Society on the 10th 

 January, 1865, we gave a description of a new species of land- 

 shell from the Cape of Good Hope, for which the sub-generic 

 name Coeliaxis was proposed. Adult specimens of a second 

 species, possessing a continuous peritreme and distinct parietal 

 plate, have since been received by us from the Solomon Archi- 

 pelago, from which it would appear that Coeliaxis must be con- 

 sidered a distinct genus, having more affinity with Gihhulina and 

 Ennea than with Suhidina, to which we at the time referred it. 

 Of the species on which Coeliaxis was founded, only two examples 

 in the British Museum Collection have their aperture at all 

 complete," &c., &c. 



I cannot read in the foregoing quotation the meaning placed 

 upon it by Fischer, who remarks (Jour, de Conch. Vol. xxxi. 

 1883, p. 99)— "Par le fait, le sous-genre Coeliaxis de 1865 est 

 supprime; le genre Coeliaxis date de 1867 et a pour type le 

 Coeliaxis exigua, Adams and Angas, des isles Salamon." Messrs. 

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