1249 



Gafrarium (Qouldia) altum n. sp. 

 PLATE 57, FIGURE 5. 



Oligocene sands of Oak Grove, Santa Rosa County, Florida ; Burns. 



Shell small, high, rounded trigonal, the beaks small but prominent and 

 rather pustular than pointed; surface with faint, irregular, concentric striae 

 and wrinkles ; towards the base and ends the sculpture is more regular, and, 

 near the ends, cut by faint radial striae ; lunule lanceolate, impressed ; pallial 

 line with a broad, shallow wave posteriorly ; right posterior dorsal margin 

 deeply grooved, the other portions of the margin smooth. Length 4.5, height 

 4.5, diameter 3.0 mm. 



This species is characterized chiefly by its small size, irregular and feeble 

 sculpture, and wide sinuation of the pallial line. 



Gafrarium (Gouldia) metastriatum Conrad. 



Cytherea metastriata Conrad, Fos. Medial Tert., p. 14, pi. viii., fig. 5, 1838. 



Venus metastriata Orbigny, Prodrome Paleont, iii., p. 108, 1852; Conrad, Am. Journ. 

 Sci., 2d Sen, i., p. 404, 1846; Tuomey and Holmes, Pleioc. Fos. S. Car., p. 79, pi. xxi., 

 fig. i, 1857; Emmons, Geol. Rep. N. Car., p. 293 (figure excluded), 1858. 



Circe metastriata Conrad, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila, for 1862, p. 575, 1863 ; Meek, 

 Checklist Mio. Fos., p. 10, 1864. 



Miocene of Suffolk (type locality) and Yorktown, Virginia ; of North 

 Carolina at Magnolia and the Natural Well, Duplin County, and Wilmington; 

 of Jackson Bluff and other localities south of Tallahassee in northwest Florida ; 

 Pliocene of the Waccamaw district, South Carolina, and of the Caloosahatchie 

 and Shell Creek, De Soto County, Florida. 



This species is coarsely sculptured with strong radial striae distally, the sulci 

 all over the disk sometimes showing radial sculpture. It is perhaps most 

 nearly allied to Gouldia bermudensis E. A. Smith of the recent fauna, but that 

 species is on the whole a more elongated form with finer and more regular 

 sculpture and less inflated shell. Originally Conrad regarded the G. cerina 

 C. B. Adams as identical with the fossil, an opinion adopted also by Tuomey 

 and Holmes. The species of Gouldia are all very similar, but there is differ- 

 ence enough in this case to render it undesirable to unite the fossil and the 

 recent shells. In the case of Emmons it seems almost certain that the shell 

 figured by him as Venus metastriata is something quite different, perhaps a 

 Lucinoid form like Phacoides radians Conrad. The measurements of G. meta- 

 striatum sometimes reach: length 16.0, height 14.0; diameter 7.5 mm., but the 

 specimens average smaller. 



