16 SYRIAN MOLLUSCAN FOSSILS. 



Amauropsis. As the application of the former name seems not yet to 

 be definitely settled, I have for the present followed Zittel in assigning 

 buIMformis (and with it the other two species) to Amauropsis, though it 

 may be questioned whether the name is justly applicable to any one of 

 the three. 



Besides the resemblance of the three species in general form, and in 

 characters of mouth and spire, their striking similarity in the region of the 

 suture is to be observed. In the several species each volution terminates 

 behind in a more or less truncatelv flattened area, bounded within, next to 

 the suture, by a thin and slightly elevated rim. and without, in two of the 

 species, by a distinct, rounded, backwai'd-projecting varix. which, with the 

 internal rim, accompanies the area to the top of the spire. The space be- 

 tween the rim and the varix constitutes a canal, deep and flat-floored in bulbir 

 fin-mis; less deep and with bottom sloping outward, but sufficiently marked, 

 in the present species ; while in the following one it becomes a slightly con- 

 cave shelf, bounded inside by the small but persistent sutural rim, and exter- 

 nally by the varix, present indeed but reduced to a minimum. In all three 

 species is found the same lightly impressed and almost linear suture, the 

 canaliculation being wholly outside the suture proper and distinct from it. 

 Coll. Bird. 



Loculitf/ and Position. — Abeih ; from the arenaceous Turonian marl. 



Amauropsis gradata, sp. nov. 



IMate I, fig. 3. 



Testa laie-ovata ; spira elevata, pyramidaia, apice acuto : anfraclus sex, a latere 

 applanati, postice prope stduram unit*' angulati et loir tabulali, spira speciem scalarum 

 gerevte; anfractus uttimus spira longior, hUor quam longior, oil angulum lafissimus, 

 prorsum subiio contractus: sutura linearis margine exili infra circumdata: apertura 

 sublunata, antice producta et incurvata, postice bvanguUda ; hbrum simplex ; columella 

 excavata, rimam umbilicalem ezhibens. 



Shell broadly ovate; spire elevated, pyramidal, having the apex acute: 

 whorls six. flattened on the sides, behind near the suture sharply angled and 

 widely tabulate, the spire showing the form of a winding staircase: hist 

 whorl longer than the spire, wider than long, broadest at the angle and 

 thence rapidly diminishing forward: suture linear, bordered by a narrow 

 margin slightly raised on each whorl: aperture sublimate, in front produced 



