Fossil FaiDia, Tabic Cape Beds, Tasmania. 81 



each whorl are the stoutest and most prominent where they cross 

 the costa?. Between the coarser threads is intercalated a finer 

 thread which has a still finer thread on either side of it, more 

 easily seen on the body and penultimate whorls than on the 

 earlier spire whorls. 



Diineiisioiis. — Length, 16 mm. ; breadth, 10 mm. ; length of 

 aperture, 6 mm. ; breadth of aperture, 4 mm. ; length of canal, 

 3 mm. Some of the Table Cape specimens are relatively smaller 

 than given above, one of these examples giving the following- 

 dimensions : — length, 12 mm. ; breadth, 7 mm. 



Locality. — Not uncommon in the lower beds of the lower 

 eocene of Spring Ci'eek, near Geelong, Victoria. Also in the 

 eocene beds of Table Cape, Tasmania, three examples. 



Observations. — I am not at present wholly satisfied with the 

 generic position of this species, but merely place it here tenta- 

 tively whilst awaiting further examination of other material. 

 The faint development in some specimens of what I cannot but 

 regard as a tendency towards varices, taken together with the 

 other characters displayed by the shell, seem certainly to indicate 

 that it should be placed in the Muricidse. It may at once be 

 separated from any of our previously described tertiary species 

 referred to this genus by its very short canal, its prominent spire, 

 ventricose whorls, and the constricted suture. So far as the 

 present specimens go, the Table Cape representatives seem to be 

 hardly so ventricose in the body-whorl as those from Spring, 

 Creek, the diiference in aspect being no doubt due to the fact 

 that the costae have become obsolete. In other respects the shells 

 are in my opinion suflficiently close to be regarded as identical. 



Species' name in honour of Sir A. 11. C. Selwyn, late Director 

 of the Geological Survey of Canada, and formerly Director of the 

 Geological Survey of Victoria, to whom we are indebted for much 

 of the best geological woi"k done in this colony. Type specimen 

 in my own collection. 



7. Triton abbotti, T. Woods. 



T. abbotti, T. Woods, P.R.S.Tas., 1874, p. 24, pi. i., fig. 8. 

 T. abbotti, Tate, Gast. I., 1888, p. 117. 



Tritojiitiw abbotti, Johnston, Geo. Tas., 1888, p. 237, pi. xxix., 

 fig. 13. 



G 



