36 R. BULLEN NEWTON on 



DIMENSIONS. 



Adult. 



Alt , approx. 55 millimetres. 



Lat 28 



REMARKS. The shell herewith described consists of nearly a dozen 

 specimens which on account of their somewhat delicate and fragile character 

 are more or less fractured. In general form it approximates to Conrad's 

 Fiisus ina^lratus^ from the Alabama (Claiborne) Eocene ( = Lutetian), a 

 species which was later selected by Conrad as the type of his genus 

 Bulbifusus? although Isaac Lea's F. fittoni of an earlier date from the same 

 deposits and identically the same shell, should more accurately be regarded 

 as the type of that genus. 



The Nigerian mollusc undoubtedly belongs to Bulbifusus and moreover 

 approaches very closely to its type species only slight differences appearing 

 to separate the two forms, as for instance the presence in the African shell of 

 a minute band encircling the posterior margin of the body whorl, and the 

 non-appearance of sutural crenulations on the spire. Lea's figure of Fus^ls 

 fittoni well illustrates the fine, longitudinally sinuous lines seen in the present 

 species. 



The genus Bulbifusus, only known in the United States, exhibits a 

 relationship to Bayle's Sycum which has for its type Fusus bulbiformis of 

 Lamarck from the European Eocenes. Sycum, however, has a well-developed 

 callosity covering the columella, a generally more angulate and deeper-whorled 

 spire, as well as possessing a strong spiral ornamentation on the basal surface ; 

 it is also a relatively wider shell, rather more excavated at the posterior margin, 

 and with a less sinuous labrum. 



OCCURRENCE. Cuttings Nos. i, 6, 10. 

 COLLECTOR. Mr. Kitson. 



1 Fossil shells of the Tertiary Formations of North America, 1835, Vol. i, No. 3, pi 18, fig. 2, p. 53. 



2 American Journ. Conch., 1865, Vol. I, p. 17, F. inauralus, Conrad is a synonym of F. fittoni. 

 Lea ; " Contributions to Geology," 1833, pi. 5, fig. 156, p. 150. 



