28 PALEONTOLOGY OF NEW JERSEY. 
large individual figured presents a more distinctly rayed surface than the 
most of those examined, but this is probably only an individual feature, 
and certainly very many of those we obtain in the markets are far more 
distinctly marked in this manner than is this one. Considering these facts 
I see no reason for separating these Miocene shells from the living ones 
simply. because they lived in a past age, as they have continued down to 
the present time without material change. 
OSTREA VIRGINIANA var. PROCYON. 
Pl. 1, figs. 4-6. 
Ostrea Virginiana var. procyon Tuomey and Holmes: Pliocene Foss. 8. Carolina, p. 
20, Pl. v, figs. 6-9. Holmes, P. P. Foss. S. Car. p. 10, Pl. 2, fig. 9a. 
Shell differing from the ordinary form of 0. Virginiana Gmel. in being 
more elongate and narrower, the beak often attenuated, and the sides of the 
valves subparallel on the anterior half of the ‘shell’s length. The upper 
valve is usually quite flat and without any depth on the inside; in fact 
often quite convex; while the lower one is rounded on the outside and 
trough-shaped within, the ligamental groove being narrow and deep, and 
often from an inch to an inch and a quarter in length. The surface of the 
lower valve is usually marked by fine, raised, rounded, and generally dis- 
tant radiating ribs, seldom visible on the posterior half of the shell. 
Specimens are found varying in form from the very narrow ones with 
nearly parallel sides, and having a length of 4 or more inches, to those pre- 
senting nearly the same form as the ordinary specimens of O. Virginiana. 
Also of the narrow forms from those with a perfectly straight beak, to 
forms having the beak curved almost at right angles to the general axis of 
the shell. The same form and variety is now living commonly on the sea- 
coast of the State, and I have gathered them in quantities along the 
beaches at the inlet north of Atlantic City. It is not distinguishable either 
by any constant feature so far as I can observe from large numbers of 
O. glabra Meek, found at many points in the Laramie group of the west, 
and as figured by both Mr. Meek in his volume on Invertebrate Palz- 
ontology in the Geological Survey of the Territories, and by Dr. C. A. 
