2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I25 



The United States National Museum now has a most magnificent 

 collection of East American pyramidellids, which extend from the 

 late Cretaceous to Recent times, and represents more than half a 

 century of effort by geologists and marine investigators. My paper 

 "Pyramidellidae of New England and the Adjacent Region," Pro- 

 ceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. 34, No. 4, 

 1909, cleared up the northern range. The rest is still awaiting 

 attention. 



The present paper is merely an effort to give a taxonomic status 

 to the members of this family that the indefatigable painstaking labors 

 of William G. Fargo and Charles R. Locklin have brought to light 

 in their exploration of the Pliocene deposits of North St. Petersburg, 

 Fla. The fact that so many new species and several new superspecific 

 groups are here described is not surprising, for the entire southern 

 pyramidellid fauna both Recent and fossil has been neglected by 

 students and hence offers an unusually large rich field for investiga- 

 tion. It would be particularly interesting, for example, to find out 

 how many of the forms here diagnosed extend to the Pleistocene and 

 the Recent or to earlier strata, and also how far they extended along 

 the coast in synchronous deposits. Equally interesting would it be to 

 trace their affinities and relationships to the West Indian and Gulf 

 and Caribbean mainland shore faunas. 



The general geologic and physiographic relationships of the region 

 are so well put forth in the main volume of which this should really 

 be a part ^ that it is not necessary to repeat that information here. 

 We may, however, quote a few lines from it (pp. 5-6) to give an 

 explicit location of the place that has furnished the shells for the 

 present report: 



The fossiliferous zone begins about 150 feet east of the southeast corner of 

 9th Street North and 70th Avenue North (or in the northwest corner of Sec. 31, 

 T. 30 S., R. 17 E.), and extends in a southeasterly direction for about 600 feet. 

 The elevation of the Ninth Street pavement at 70th Avenue is about five feet 

 above mean tide level, according to records in the office of the City Engineer. 

 This area forms a small part of an extensive real estate subdivision of the 

 1920's called "North St. Petersburg," in w^hich some of the streets are open 

 and others not. 



Along the North St. Petersburg fossil band, typical Caloosahatchee [Pliocene] 

 shells are scattered over the surface of the ground or can be obtained in greater 



2 Pliocene Mollusca of southern Florida vi^ith special reference to those from 

 North Saint Petersburg, by Axel A. Olsson and Anne Harbison, with special 

 chapters on Turridae by William G. Fargo, and Vitrinellidae and Fresh-water 

 Mollusks by Henry A. Pilsbry. Monogr. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, No. 8, 

 457 pp., 65 pis., 1953- 



