248 AMERICAN JOURNAL 



5. JVotes on the genera Pyrifusds and Athleta and other shells 

 figured in the Geological Survey of India. 



The purpose of these notes is to correct a few errors in the 

 Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India, in which Stoliczka 

 quotes Volutilithes liederma, Conrad, as the type of the genus 

 Athleta, which was published in the Proceedings of the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences in 1853, and characterized from Voluta 

 rarispina and V. Tuomeyi. I subseqently made Voluta lioder- 

 ma the type of a new genus, under the name of Lio 'derma, in 

 the same publication in 1865. Athleta is a very spinose shell ;. 

 Lioderma entire and completely covered by enamel, which 

 occurs only on the callous portion of the former. Moreover, in 

 the latter the columella folds are very oblique and but slightly 

 developed, and the spire elevated. This genus is so far known 

 only in Cretaceous, the other only in Eocene strata. The fossils 

 figured in the India Survey on pi. viii, figures 4 to 8, do not rep- 

 resent either genus probably, but most resemble Lioderma. . 



Stoliczka remarks .that his Rapa corallina is nearly related to 

 Fusus Tippana, Conrad, and thinks the want of ornamentation 

 on the spire of the latter may be due to erosion of the surface, 

 and in that case the two species could hardly be separated. I 

 do not know what he means by the ornamentation of the spire, 

 as it is not in his diagnosis, and the American shell is as perfect 

 on the spire as if it were recent. The tubercles are slightly 

 foliaceous or disposed to be scaly, as in Busycon, and the spire 

 is without that thickened margin of the suture which character- 

 izes Rapa corallina. I consider it not of the same genus as F. 

 Tippana. If by ornamentation of the spire he means spiral lines, 

 they are present, but only visible through a lens, and are obsolete. 



On pi. xii, figures 10 to 16, and on pi. xiii, figures 1 to 4, are 

 referred to Rapa, a genus which I think did not exist earlier than 

 the Miocene, if known at all, except as a recent form. They 

 will come in Pyrifusus, Conrad, if that genus should be estab- 

 lished, which was published in the Journal of the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences in 1858. It has the upper part of the labrum 

 margin incurved, and a flattened columella. It is not a perfectly 

 rounded shell. The shells on pi. xii, figures 5 to 8, referred to 

 Tudicla represent a group which I have named Pyropsis, as a 

 subgenus, but I think now it merits generic rank, differing from 

 Tudicla in having a subtruncated apex, not papillated, and a 

 smooth inner surface of the labrum ; no fold on the columella, 

 and the mouth more expanded and angulated. 



Rapa elevata, Gabb, I believe to be the cast of Pyropsis per- 

 lata, Conrad, which may be the same as Pyrula Richardsonii, 

 Tuomey. 



