380 Prof. F. M‘Coy on new Species of Fossil Volutes. 
bercle ; a narrow, step-like, undulated, flattened or slightly con- 
cave space extends to the suture perpendicular to the axis; 
lower or anterior half of body-whorl strongly marked with trans- 
verse or obliquely spiral deep narrow sulci, having broader flat- 
tened spaces between them, occasionally extending more faintly 
a further variable distance towards the suture; mouth with a 
slight posterior channel, oblong, narrowed in front; outer lip 
smooth within (edge sometimes very faintly crenulated in old 
individuals) ; inner lip slightly curved, with four slender, oblique, 
nearly equal plaits about the middle, the anterior slightly longer 
than the posterior ; occasionally traces of a very small fifth plait 
occur. . 
Usual length 1 inch 9 lines; body-whorl 532; to 7825, penul- 
timate whorl +3, to 3,; width 523, to =22,. Young, 5 lines 
long, body-whorl =23;, penultimate whorl 35 ; width 332,: at 
this size only three sculptured whorls at the pullus, twenty-two 
ribs on body-whorl. Some species show that the mouth was 
dark violet within. 
From the examination of a great number of specimens from 
the Lower Miocene or “ Tongrien” beds of Lattorg, near Bem- 
berg, | long ago satisfied myself that the V. suturalis and V. 
cingulata of Nyst were only extreme varieties of one species; and 
Beyrich seems somewhat inclined to the same opinion, from ex- 
amination of a larger number of specimens from other localities, 
of one of the varieties at least, than Nyst seems to have had of 
either, as he marks them both as rare in his ‘ Coquilles et Poly- 
piers Fossiles de Belgique ;? and the latter name would be the 
best to retain, as it indicates the remarkable girdling of the 
whorls by the deep sulcus or constriction which seems to cut off 
a subsutural row of tubercles from the ends of the longitudinal 
ribs in the most common variety; still, as in the V. bulbula, 
Lam., to which Nyst likens the V. suturalis, specimens may be 
found showing all the transitions between the most strongly 
marked subsutural sulcus and its entire absence. The latter 
variety I mark @. indivisa; and in it the ribs are often fewer and 
more sigmoid, and the shell narrower, than in the ordinary forms, 
though none of these characters are constant; in this variety, 
too, the spiral striz are often confined to the anterior base of the 
shell, leaving the body intact and the ribs smooth and polished. 
Var. a. perstriata has the ribs rather more numerous and 
straighter than in the ordinary type, and the spiral strie very 
strongly marked over the whole body-whorl and spire, so as to 
be in this respect intermediate between the Hampshire Barton 
Clay V. ambigua and V. digitalina. In this variety the teeth 
sometimes reach six or seven; the obtuse swollen papillary 
“‘pullus” to the top of the spire readily separates it on compa- 
