146 Prof. F. M‘Coy on the Ancient and Recent 
present the most extraordinary series of species of Voluta, repre- 
sentative of those of the Eocene clay of Barton cliff in Hamp- 
shire, and of the Miocene beds of the basins of Paris and Vienna, 
that can be conceived: the V. spinosa, V. modesta, and V. sutu- 
ralis of the European Miocene beds are so exactly represented 
by species in the Geelong beds, that it requires a close examina- 
tion to perceive the difference; and similarly the English and 
French series of Eocene species, V. luctatriv, V. spinosa, V. lyra, 
V. ambigua, and V. digitalina are “represented” in the most 
curious and exact manner by a similar series of species in the 
Victoria beds, having the same relations of form between them- 
selves, and specifically almost undistinguishable at first sight 
from their northern analogues—the likeness being rendered 
stronger by the recognition of this complete parallel series im each 
hemisphere: and yet there is a minute difference (considered 
generic by some writers) separating the two series from each 
other,—the Eocene Tertiary Volutes of Europe having a regular 
sharp-pointed spire and forming the genus Volutilites of Swain- 
son, while the Australian “ analogues” have the distorted mam- 
millated tip to the spire characteristic of the recent Volutide. 
Then, again, the common Cassidaria depressa of the Lower Mio- 
cene of Germany is so exactly represented by an equally common 
species in our beds of the same age, which I have named Cassi- 
daria reticulospira, that the two can be distinguished only by the 
character indicated of a reticulation of the extreme whorls of the 
spire. The Trivia avellana of the same European beds is exactly 
replaced by the almost identical Trivia avellanotdes (M‘Coy) in 
the Victoria beds, and so on through a long series of repre- 
sentative forms, giving us the first distinct proof, in our progres- 
sive sketch of the development of life in Victoria, of the action 
of the “ law of representation of specific centres” which plays so 
important a part in the distribution of organic life on our globe 
at the present day, but which, as we have seen, apparently had 
no effect in the more ancient times. 
As bearing upon that question of great interest to the European 
geologist, the palzontological evidence of progressive changes of 
temperature in our earth, geologists will be interested to know 
that, as the living species in the European Miocene Tertiaries 
are generally inhabitants not of the neighbouring seas but of 
mre southern warmer latitudes,so I observe exactly the same 
fact in Victoria, the recent shells mingled with the extinct ones 
in our Miocene deposits being usually forms not living in our — 
bay or in the adjacent seas, but inhabitants of New Zealand (as 
the Pectunculus laticostatus, which is common in the fossil state 
with us, though not now living nearer than New Zealand) and 
the warmer latitudes of Adelaide and Northern Australia,—thus 
