OF SOUTHERN INDIA. 81 
and near Cherra-Poonjee (North-East Bengal), the fossils of both of these localities 
awaiting examination as soon as those of the South Indian cretaceous deposits have 
been completed. 
We have thus about 64 species of vorurinn known from cretaceous deposits, 
of which not a single one has yet been found to occur in the lowest cretaceous or 
Neocomian beds. It is also very remarkable that, except some doubtful casts, no spe- 
cies have been traced in the lowest beds of the Indian cretaceous deposits—the Ootatoor 
group, although several species are well known from the cotemporaneous (?) beds, 
containing Ammonites inflatus, Mantelli, §c., in European districts. It must not be 
forgotten, however, that in other respects also, our Ootatoor beds have yielded only a 
small number of Gastropoda and Lamellibranchia, and these for the most part 
only in poor casts. Weare thus led to expect, that this discrepancy will find its 
solution rather in a local geological explanation, than in any difference of time, as 
would be suggested by the present definition of the several groups. 
The Melo pyriformis and Ficulopsis Pondicherriensis have, it is true, been found 
in the Pondicherry sandstones, which are usually classed in the Valudayur group, 
but as I have already stated, there is some discrepancy in the distinctions of the 
different strata of these sandstones, and among the so-called Valudayur group beds 
of more recent date, corresponding in age with the Arrialoor group, seem to be still 
included. Equally doubtful is the occurrence of Fulguraria elongata in the 
Ootatoor beds. 
We shall now proceed to a more detailed description of the species, confining, 
however, our remarks only to those genera which are represented in the present 
series of our cretaceous fossils. 
XIII. SCAPHA, Klein, 1753; Gray, 1857 (7) 
(H. and A. Adams’ Genera, IT, p. 616, Appendix 1: Gray’s Guide, 1857, p. 33.) 
The four sub-genera distinguished by Gray in this genus can be only approx- 
imately defined, and in the determination of the fossil forms, there seems scarcely 
a possibility to retain them, unless our materials are very much more complete than 
now. From the want of the small posterior plaits on the inner lip and of an oper- 
culum, there is full reason to separate these forms from Volwta proper, to which they 
are most nearly related. The shell is usually smooth or only obsoletely sulcated 
spirally ; the number of columellar plaits varies from three to five. 
I do not know a single cretaceous species, which could with any certainty be 
referred to this genus; and even of the two, which we here refer to the same, only the 
Se. gravida has strictly speaking claims to it, the form of the shell of the second 
species being rather unusually much elongated. But as the other characters agree, 
it may stand here provisionally, until fully preserved specimens settle the question. 
The Volu. Requieniana, D’Orb., presents a similarity in ornamentation, but the general 
form is so very different that the species, as it appears to have been based upon a 
rather perfect specimen, may better be retained as Volutilithes. 
aE 
