326 RECORDS OF THK ADSTUALIAN MUSECM. 



Daphnella botaxica Hedley. 



(Plate liii., figs. 157, 158, 159.) 



Daphnella hotanica Hedley, Jouru. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., li., 1918, sappl. 

 p. M. 83. 



The first record of DaphneJln from Australia was bj' G. F. Augas, 

 who ill 1867 reported D. rrehripJicnta Reeve and D. Jijinnn-formiii (sic) 

 Kiener from Sydney, and in 1880 D. fragili^ Reeve from Aldinga Bay, 

 South Australia.^^ Actually these three uames refer to a single species 

 for which none of them can be used. According to the types in the South 

 Kensington Museum, the Sydney species differs from the Philippine 

 B. crehn'plirata by being more delicately sculptured and raoi'e regularly 

 fusiform. I). ]ymtieifnrmii< Kiener is a very distinct West Indian species. 

 The spelling used by Angas showed that he took for this species the 

 interpretation of Reeve, who figured another species under Kiener's name. 

 Plenrotonia frngil is Reeve was described without locality, but Smith ^^ ]ias 

 recognised it from Japan, while Bouge and Dautzenberg^ had it fi'oni 

 New Caledonia. 



The representation of P. frcKjilis does not agree precisely' with the 

 Sydney shell, being a little broader and shorter, with less definite 

 radial sculpture. We are, however, i-elieved of the difficulty of identifying 

 this obscure species by the accident of a prior name. Eleven years previous 

 to Reeve's description a fossil of the Paris Basin had received the name of 

 Pleurotuma fragilis from Deshayes.^^ Accordingly the Sydney shell 

 being thus left nameless, is introduced as Daiili)tella botiiulca, in reference 

 to Botany Bay, i.e. New South Wales, and is defined thus: — 



Shell slender-fusiform, slightly contiacted at the base, spire produced. 

 Colour: — On a buff ground the whole surface is irregularly clouded or 

 mottled with burnt umber, the dark spaces often predominating. Whorls 

 six, plus the protoconch, rounded, wound obliquely, excavated at the 

 fasciole, and angled below it. Scnl{)ture: — The protoconch of two and a 

 half whorls is microscopically obliquely reticulated ; the last whorl has 

 about forty s})iral threads, the penultimate twelve, and so on till the 

 topmost with three is reached ; between the larger threads smaller ones 

 are intei'calated, and gradually enlarge till of equal size ; small sharp 

 radials, close set at the rate of about eighty to a w^horl, over-ride the 

 spirals and produce beads at the points of intersection ; these extend 

 unbroken across the whole shell. Aperture oblique elliptical, half the 

 length of the shell ; outer lip thin and arched forward ; notch deep and 

 broad; inner lip excavating the sculpture of laised network in its path of 

 advancement; columella with a thin callus deposit. Length 20 mm., 

 breadth 7 mm. 



88 Angas— Proc. Zool. Soc, 1867, p. 203; 1880, p. 416. 



8» Smith— Proc. Zool. Soc, 1879, p. 198. 



"" Bouge and Dautzenherg — Journ. de Concli., Ixi., 1914, p. 209. 



y Deshayes — Desciip. Coq. Foss. Paris, ii., 1834. p. 480, pi. Ixvii., tigs. 25, 26, 27. 



