FREE INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE 



I 169 



TERTIARY FAUNA OF FLORIDA 



A careful examination of a good many specimens shows that there is great 

 variation in the outline of this little species, and, as in all these groups with 

 imperfectly developed hinge-teeth, more or less discrepancy between the hinges 

 of different individuals. There is no constant difference between specimens 

 from Massachusetts, Britain, and Alaska, nor even a prevailing facies which 

 would enable one to distinguish geographical races. T. occidentalis Dall, from 

 eastern Siberia, near Bering Strait, has a more rounded form and is nearly 

 twice the size of T. minuta, but I am by no means sure that it is not a mere 

 local development of the typical species. Jeffreys states that the " pallial scar 

 is deeply sinuous or indented," which is an error, probably arising from, the 

 individual mutation of some abnormal specimen. I have never seen one in 

 which it was not perfectly simple and entire. 



This species was referred to " Lescea" Leach by Moller in 1842 (Ind. Moll. 

 Gronl.), which is an obvious lapsus for Lascca. 



Genus MONTACTJTA Turton. 



Montacuta Turton, Dithyra Brit., p. 58, 1822. First sp. M. substriata Mtg. (as Ligula) 



Turt., op. cit., p. 59, pi. n, figs. 9, 10. 

 Tellimya II., Brown, 111. Rec. Conch. Gt. Brit., ist ed., 1827; 2d ed., p. 106, 1844 (ist sp. 



Montacuta ferruginosa Turton). 

 Montacuta Thorpe, Brit. Mar. Conch., p. 51, 1844; Gray, P. Z. S., 1847, p. 192. Type M. 



substriata Mtg., Herrmannsen, Ind. Gen. Mai., ii., 1847 (same type) ; Gray, List of 



Brit. An. B. M., p. 84, 1851. 

 < Montacuta Jeffreys, Brit. Conch., ii., p. 204, 1863 ; Fischer, Man. de Conchyl., p. 1027, 



1887; Cossmann, Cat. Illustr., ii., p. 81, 1887; Verrill, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., xx.. 



p. 779, 1898. 



Tellimya sp. Dall, Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., No. 37, p. 50, 1889. 

 > Decipula (Jeffreys MS.) Friele, Vid. Selsk. for., p. 57, 1875. Type D. ovata Jeffreys, 



loc. cit. 

 Montaguia Fischer, Man., p. 1027, 1886; not Desmarets, 1825. 



Turton's first species of Montacuta * (substriata} has been regarded as the 



* The form Montacuta is that proposed by Turton. Desmarets three years later used 

 the form Montagua for a Crustacean. Three years later still, in 1828, Fleming named a 

 Nudibranch Montagua; and in 1855 Bate applied the same name to a Crustacean. In 

 1882 Scudder suggested that Turton's genus should be spelled Montaguia, which was 

 approved of by Fischer (1887) and acted on by Locard (1898). 



The present writer can see no good reason why the word should not be retained as 



