168 



upon wliich are traces of cancellate structure. Eocene : Broken 

 river, Trelissick (No. 5), l^ew Zealand. 



G. 9623. Three blocks containing casts of shells with smooth, 

 shouldered whorls and canaliculate suture. Miocene : " Conus- 

 beds," Mokihinui, New Zealand. 



Family NASSID^. 



Genus NASSA, Lamarck. 

 [Mem. Soc. Hist. Nat. Paris, 1799, p. 71.] 



Shell solid, bucciniform, elongate or turriculate ; spire generally 

 acute ; aperture oral ; outer margin thick, often varicose, lirate, 

 striate or denticulate within ; inner margin callous, the latter 

 commonly spreading over a large portion of the ventral surface 

 of the shell, becoming especially thick in front, and having a 

 more or less salient denticle posteriorly ; columella truncate and 

 furnished with an oblique plication in front ; canal very short 

 and twisted. 



The writer does not attempt any subdivision of this genus. 



Ti/pe. — Buccinum mutabile, Linuseus. 



Nassa crassigranosa, Tate. 



1888. Nassa [Phrontis) crassigranosa, Tate, Trans. Roy. Soc. South Anst. 

 vol. X. pp. 169, 170, pi. xii. figs. &a^b. 



Distinguished by its varicose outer margin, which presents a 

 thin edge, by the widespread callosity on the inner margin and 

 by the granose aspect of the whorls. Professor Tate remarks that 

 " Senile examples occur which have added another whorl, and by 

 reason of the posterior varix have a somewhat distorted spire." 

 He compares it with the living N. granifer, Kiener. 



It also resembles N. vibex, Say, of the Atlantic coast of the 

 United States, but the protoconch of the latter is more acute, 

 the longitudinal cost* on the whorls are more distant and not 

 so oblique, and granulate ; further, the spire in the American 

 shell is not so much elevated, and the borders of the aperture 



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