642 SYSTEMATIC PALEONTOLOGY 



by the more produced and much more evenly inflated anterior portion of 

 the shell. 



Occurrence. MATAWAN FORMATION. Three-quarters of a mile south- 

 east of Ulmstead Point, Anne Arundel County. 



Collection. Maryland Geological Survey. 



order TELEODESMACEA 



Superfamily CYPR1CARDIACEA 

 Family PLEUROPHORIDAE 



Genus VENIELLA Stoliczka 

 (Mem. Geol. Survey of India, Cret. Fauna S. India, 1871, vol. iii, p. 189) 



= Venilia Morton 1833, Am. Jour. Sci., 1st ser., vol. xxiii, p. 294. Xot 

 Venilia Dupouch 1829, a Lepidopteran genus. 



Type. Venilia conradi Morton. 



" Shell ventricose, inflated, with the beaks outwardly incurved, more or 

 less distant, a long narrow ligamental furrow running from them pos- 

 teriorly, situated above strong fulcra; hinge with two cardinal and one 

 posterior lateral tooth in each valve; right valve with the supra-posterior 

 cardinal tooth, generally bifid anteriorly with a hook-like downward bent 

 prolongation, infero-anterior cardinal smaller, lamelliform, or more or less 

 tubercular, separated from the other tooth by a more or less horizontally 

 extending flexuous groove into which the infero-anterior cardinal tooth 

 of the left valve fits ; the supero-posterior cardinal of this valve is moder- 

 ately prolonged, single or indistinctly bifid." Stoliczka, 1871. 



The shell is rude and heavy and, as a rule, subtrapezoidal or quadrate 

 in outline with a more or less clearly differentiated lunule and escutcheon 

 and an angulated posterior keel. Irregular concentric sculpture is usually 

 developed, but it is rarely more than a modification of the heavy incre- 

 mentals. The adductor impressions, particularly the anterior, are distinct 

 or even excavated, as is so frequently the case in the heavy bivalves. The 

 pallial line is entire. 



The Cretaceous apparently marks the initiation and the culmination 

 of Veniella, although it survived in diminished numbers into the Tertiary. 



Etymology: A modification of Morton's pre-occupied Venilia, the name of 

 one of the nymphs of Roman mythology. 



