90 CRETACEOUS GASTROPODA 
XVII. ATHLETA, Conrad, 1860. 
(Vide Jour. Acad. Nat. Sc. Phil. 2d. ser. Vol. IV, p. 292, Pl. 46, Fig. 32.) 
Conrad gave the above name to a very characteristic fossil, meaning it as a 
sub-genus of Volutilithes, from which, however, the species figured by him differs 
essentially in having the anterior extremity little produced, scarcely half as much as 
in the typical Volutilithes, the anterior termination being moreover truncate as in 
Scapha or Voluta. Gabb (Proc. Am. Phil. Soc. VIII, 1861, p. 150) quotes the 
species as Volutilithes leioderma, Con., without referring to the sub-generic distinc- - 
tion at all. We cannot pronounce any opinion upon the American fossil, but the 
character noticed by Conrad seems to be not so unimportant. Conrad says, loc. cit. 
‘labrum slightly notched or sinuous at the superior extremity,’ and further “the 
suture covered by a deposit as in the genus Ancilla.” ‘These differences are very 
marked in two of our ecretaceous species. Both margins are united by a callus, 
producing on the aperture a distinct posterior canal, the end of which is often 
prolonged in a furrow below the suture, which itself is covered by the callosity 
of the inner lip. One of the species, the Vol. purpuriformis, of Forbes (Husus id. 
D’Orbigny and others), resembles very much recent species, which are referred 
by Adams to Harpula (remarkably distinct from Voluta, (sensu restricto) and 
the other bears much resemblance to neta, Adams (which ought to be kept 
distinct from Lyria proper, not regarded as a sub-genus only, according to Gray). 
IT am rather sorry that I have none of these living shells to compare with our 
fossils, but so far as their characteristics or those of other sub-divisions of the 
rotutivn® have been noticed, they seem not to exhibit these peculiarities, and I 
should think that if they existed, they could not have been overlooked. 
The distinction from Volutilithes must certainly be recorded, and it remains 
only doubtful whether the species can be classed with Harpula, Swainson, or in a 
separate genus. 
The character, as deduced from the three cretaceous species known up to the 
present, may be put thus : 
Athl. testa ovate-conica, elongata, spira brevi; ultimo anfractu ventricoso, antice 
paulum prolongato, truncato atque emarginato; apertura ovali, antice late- postice 
anguste-effusa, marginibus postice callosis, wnitis ; callositate suturam tegente ; labio 
antice plicato, postice levissimo, plicis anterioribus fortioribus, numerosis. 
Conrad mentions in Ath. leioderma four columellar plaits; one of our species 
has three and the other five plaits, although there may possibly be found to be one 
more in each of the two species. The same author refers to Athleta the Voluta 
Tuomeyi (ibid Pl. 47, Fig. 85), which belongs to the same group as Volut. rarispina, 
Lam. and others, and which, I rather believe, ought to be classed in a separate 
genus, . 
