VOLUTIDJE. 93 



species of Vespertilio, as well as of Aulica, and they are in 

 a measure liaked together by the Tertiary Valuta macdonaldi, as 

 ■\viU be seen later on (see p. 106). There is nothing antagonistic 

 in the view that the protoconch (Plato IV. Figs. Wor-b) of either 

 of the antipodean species mentioned is a gigantic representation of 

 Volutilithes far advanced in an evolutionary sense. Neither, on the 

 other hand, can it be denied that there is much in common between 

 it and typical examples of Valuta (as in the living V. musica, 

 Linnaeus). The spinose character of the whorls in V. stropliodon 

 and its congener — if such a property can be said to be of any value 

 whatever for systematic purposes — certainly reminds one of true 

 Volutilithes also. In the present state of our knowledge, however, 

 the writer prefers to leave the mode of descent of Aulica an open 

 question ; though the latter undoubtedly came from the Rostellites- 

 Volutilitliss stock, and was evolved in late Eocene, or more 

 probably in Oligocene, times. 



The corrugations of the anterior part of the protoconch of 

 Volutoconus (Plate IV. Figs. 13<j-5) suggest affinities with Vespertilio 

 (see p. 108) ; and the larval shell as a whole, at least in the fossil 

 Valuta conoidea, betrays its origin in Aulica, of which Vohctoconus 

 may be regarded as a minor but persistent offshoot. 



Amoria has a more pointed protoconch (Plate IV. Figs. 14«-5) 

 than Aulica, and the anterior portion is more spread out; but 

 it is obviously a modification of the Valuta strophadon type of 

 larval shell, of late Tertiary origin. By the general con- 

 figuration of the shell of the adult, both in fossil and living 

 forms, Amoria appears to be sharply defined from all other groups 

 of the VoLUTiDiE. It has been a characteristic of the Australian 

 fauna since Upper Miocene times, if the upper beds at Muddy 

 Creek are as old as that period. 



The Scaphelloid Series. — In typical forms of this series the 

 larva is clothed with a horny protoconch, the existence of which 

 was first made known by Professor Dall,' with reference to the 

 living Scaphella magellanica, Sowerby. That author remarks that 

 the horny type was probably similar in form to that which, when 

 shelly, results in the "bulbous nucleus" of the Volutoid line of 

 descent. " Later on," he says, " but while still in the ovicapsule, 



' Bull. Museum Cornp. Zool. llarvard, vol. xviii. 1889, p. -45:; 



