DE. T. DAVIDSON ON RECENT BRACHIOPODA. 4:{ 



valve, and form the commencement of the shorter spiral central lobe. Dimensions very 

 variable, a large well-shaped example measured — length 1 inch 7 lines, breadth 1 inch 

 4 lines, depth 1 inch. 



Hah. Waldheimia fiavescens { = aus(rcd!s) was picked up in great numbers by thr 

 ' Challenger ' Expedition on the 3rd of June, 1874, at Port Jackson, N. S. W., on the 

 shore, and in from two to ten feet depth of water. Mr. John Brazier, who has dredged 

 extensively in the seas adjoining New South Wales, has kindly sent me specimens from 

 Point Piper, Port Jackson, found under stones in clusters like grapes during low spring- 

 tides, also on Os/i'ca glomerata, Gould, with a specimen of Kraussina Lamarcldano 

 on the inside ; a young or smooth variety on a piece of shell with Ismenia or Mecjerlift 

 pulchella, from the inner north head of Port Jackson, at 10 fathoms, on a bottom of 

 sand and broken shells ; likewise from Bottle and Glass Rocks, Port Jackson ; and also 

 from off Shark Point, Port Jackson, at a depth of 14 fathoms. Quoy and Gaimard 

 found this species, in 1834, in immense numbers at Port Western, Bass Strait. Tliey 

 observe that hundreds were brought up at each haul of the dredge, either grouped 

 among themselves, or attached to other shells ; also at Port Jackson, in four feet of 

 Avater. Prof. Beete Jukes collected any number while boating in South Australia, 

 among the reefs at Port Jackson ; indeed this is one of the commonest species in the 

 locality. The Rev. Tenison Woods observes, in his ' Census of the Marine Shells of 

 Tasmania,' that Waldheimia jlavescens is found off all South Australia, but only on the 

 north coast of Tasmania. 



Obs. I have nothing much to add to my description of this well-known species given 

 in the ' Challenger ' Report. The shell has received four or five different specific 

 names, but the best known are those oi jlavescens, Lamarck, and uustraUs, Quoy. In 

 1819, Lamarck having become blind, Valenciennes described for Lamarck the species 

 in question, under the names of Terehmtula flavescens and T. dentata ; but he gives 

 no figures of his species, and upon inquiring from Valenciennes, in 1882, I found that 

 it was to a specimen from Port Jackson tliat he gave the name o'i Jlavescens. Tlic 

 larger number of malacologists have preferred the name of austraUs, given to it iii 

 1834 by Quoy and Gaimard, Avho gave a number of good illustrations of the shell, 

 including that of the loop *. Quoy's T. recurca is no more than a short variation in 

 form of a specimen in which the beak is much incurved ; and the same may be said of 

 Lamarck's T. dentata. 



Waldheimia flavescens is very variable in shape and ribbing. In some examples the 

 beak is longer or more produced than in others, and the foramen much more distant 

 from the hinge-line in some individuals than in others. Some specimens are also more 

 or less subpentagoual, others elongated oval, some lozenge-shaped and circular. The 

 valves in some examples are quite smooth in the young, and very often up to an advanced 

 stage of growth. In other specimens the ribs are simple or bifurcating, and of differeni 

 size and strength on the same individual, and begin to rise close to, or at some distance 

 from, the extremity of the beak and umbo. In PL VII. some of these modifications 

 in shape and character have been illustrated. 



* Voyage dc TAstrolabo, Atlas, pi. 85 (18:34). 



6* 



