218 PALAEONTOLOGY OF NEW JERSEY. 



VENERIDtE. 



Geuus CARYATIS Roemer. 



Caryatis? veta, u. sp. 



Plate XXVIII, Figs. 16-19. 



Bucardia veta Courad. Am. Jour. Couch., Vol. V, p. 41, PI. 1, Pigs. 2 aud 3. 



Shell small, seldom an inch in extreme length and somewdiat less in 

 height, broadly ovate in outline and quite ventricose, with large, prominent, 

 slightly incurved, approximate beaks, which are placed at or just within 

 the anterior third of the length Hinge line arcuate, rapidly declining from 

 the beaks backward ; posterior end of the shell obsoletely truncate and 

 uan-owed as compared with the middle of the valve ; anterior end narrowly 

 rounded, or obtusely pointed, and with an imperceptibly fnarked lunule 

 beneath the overhanging beaks ; basal line curved, but with an almost in- 

 appreciable flattening in the middle. Body of the valves ventricose, with- 

 out perceptible umbonal angle. Surface of the shell marked by fine con- 

 centric lines of growth. The species is seldom seen except as internal casts, 

 in which condition it still retains its general form, but the hinge cavity 

 between the beaks is then quite dej^ressed and broad, and sometimes, from 

 the retention of a part of the shell on the anterior end, presents the appear- 

 ance of having a deeply marked lunule. On these casts the muscular mark- 

 ings are extremely faint, but of large size, and the pallial line is deeply 

 sinuate and the sinus broad, pointed, and directed obliquely upward in the 

 direction of the lunular area at the anterior end. The hinge features I have 

 not been able to determine any further than that there is evidence of at 

 least two teeth in each valve, and other corrugations representing other 

 features in advance of the beaks. In the only example on which the shell 

 is preserved the ligamental area is coated with foreign matter, so that it is 

 impossible to determine if there is an external ligament or not. The pre- 

 sumptive evidence, however, is that if external at all it was extremely minute. 



This is one of several species from the base of the Ujiper Marl Beds of 

 New Jersey, which have usually been indiscriininatel}- referred to Cyprirta 

 Morrissi Sowerby, an European species, from the lower Eocene ; but as 



