68 PALEONTOLOGY OF NEW JERSEY. 
directed more nearly in the line of the longitudinal axis of the shell. How 
far these features might prove constant among a larger number of speci- 
mens I can not say; they appear to exist among the few specimens I have 
in hand. Were it not for the surface features of the types I should have 
been inclined to consider all the others as only varieties of V. mercenaria, 
as I see on them no other features by which they could possibly be dis- 
tinguished; the surface as shown on the type, however, is very distinctive. 
Localities: Mr. Conrad gives the locality of his specimens as ‘“Cum- 
berland County, N. J.” Those which I have in hand are from Jericho, and 
near Shiloh, in the same county, and belong to the collection of the 
National Museum at Washington, D. C. 
Genus MERCENARIA Schumacher. 
MERCENARIA CANCELLATA. 
Plate x11, figs. 2 and 3. 
Mercenaria cancellata Gabb: Jour. Acad. Nat. Sei. Phil., 2d series, vol. 4, p. 376, Pl. 
LXvul, fig. 25; Meek Check List, Smith. Inst., p. 9. 
M. (Venus) cancellata (Gabb) Conrad: Acad. Nat. Sci., Phil., 1862, p. 574; Heilprin, 
Tert. Geol. U. S., p. 8; Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., 1887, pp. 397, 398, and 403. 
Compare V. capar Conrad: Miocene Foss., p. 68, Pl. XxxIXx, fig. 4, (by error Pl. XXXVIII). 
“Convex beaks inclined anteriorly; umbones prominent and rounded; 
cardinal margin slightly curved, anterior extremity and basal margin 
rounded, posterior extremity subangular at its junction, both with the basal 
and cardinal margin; surface marked by numerous small angular ribs 
crossed by fine, radiating, impressed lines; anterior muscular impression 
semilunar, posterior larger and irregular; pallial sinus small and angular.” 
(Gabb.) 
The specimen from which the above description was taken is quite 
imperfect, but enough of it remains to show that it is distinct from any of 
the species of the genus known to our coast, or as fossils in the Miocene or 
later beds. A little more than half of the surface retains its natural fea- 
tures; the rest has the outer parts removed and the inner layers consider- 
ably weathered, while the interior is in very fair condition, except the 
hinge, the cardinal and posterior portions of which have been quite destroyed. 
