Prof. P. M. Duncan on the Salenid^. 61 



bly this last is the only dredging which yielded Salenice in 

 the European seas, and Saleni.a profundi and Sir Wyville 

 Thomson's new form come from it. 



On Tertiary Salenid^. 



Two species of Salenia have rewarded the careful search of 

 labourers amongst the faunas of the vast Tertiary series. 

 One species, and, I believe, but one specimen of it, was 

 obtained by M. Pellat and described by Cotteau from the 

 Nummulitic strata of Biarritz, and is clearly of Eocene age * ; 

 and one species, illustrated by several specimens of different 

 sizes, was discovered in the cliffs at Aldinga, 26 miles south 

 of Adelaide, South Australia, and was subsequently described 

 and figured by Prof. Ralph Tate, F.G.S. &c. This species 

 comes from the Middle Tertiaries of Australia, and was asso- 

 ciated with fossils having the facies of the Murray-River beds. 

 Prof. Tate remarks : — " The discovery of a Tertiary Salenia 

 very happily bridges over the hiatus that separates in time the 

 newly discovered living example obtained by Sir Wyville 

 Thomson during the cruise of the ^ Challenger.' " He de- 

 scribes the species, of which he sent four specimens to the 

 Geological Society, as follows f : — 



" Salenia tertiaria^ spec. nov. — Form with the characters 

 belonging to the genus, hemispherical, depressed, moderately 

 inflated below, base concave ; mouth not large, nearly cir- 

 cular; anus subhexagonal, disk with shagreen-like orna- 

 mentation, suranal plate smaller than the genital plates. 

 Each interambulacral area with 12 crenulated tubercles in two 

 vertical rows. Poriferous zones straight, ambulacral areas 

 margined with large granules, between which are two rows of 

 smaller ones, amongst which are scattered granulations. 



" Diameter of the largest specimen xV of ^^ inch, height 

 i\ inch." 



Prof. Tate in his distant scene of labour and isolated from 

 many sources of information, could not be aware of the exis- 

 tence of other recent species of Salenia or of Cotteau's tertiary 

 type ; but he, of course, recognized the peculiarity of his new 

 form at once, and it certainly is remarkable for the number of 

 the primary tubercles in the interambulacra and for the granu- 

 lation of the ambulacra. As minuteness of detail is requisite 

 for the purpose of comparing all these fossils, I make no 



* Cotteau, " Echinides Nouveaux " Eev. et Mag. de Zoologie, Mai 1860, 

 p. 222 ; and since this essay was commenced the Indian Survey have 

 found a Salenia in Sindh. 



t R. Tate, F.G.S., Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxxiii. p. 268, 1877. 



