78 TRANSACTIONS OF THE WAGNER FREE 



whether it is capsular in its development or whether these forms, like Melo, 

 are viviparous. They evidently tend toward the type of Melo, and it would not 

 be surprising to find the larval progress similar. 



As to the recent VoliitidcB, the invaluable researches of Messrs. Crosse and 

 Fischer have brought together conveniently nearly all that is known, and it 

 would savor of impertinence, in the absence of any substantial addition to our 

 knowledge, if the writer should attempt to travel over the same ground. 



Scaphelloid Series. — I have repeatedly referred to the presence of viviparous 

 volutes {Eucymbd) in the Cretaceous and Eocene. Viviparity or capsular 

 protection would seem to be indispensable for larvae of these forms with a 

 membranous protoconch. Those forms with small larvae are capsular and the 

 others viviparous at the present day. The initiation of the capsular or Cari- 

 ceHa-type is wrapped in obscurity. I have from the lowest Eocene bed im- 

 mediately covering the Ripley group of Mississippi a perfectly normal, though 

 slender, species (C. Leand). In Britain the lowest Eocene affords a similar 

 species (C Wetherelli Sowerby), Thence to the present day the course of de- 

 velopment of the Scaphelloid series is uninterrupted and coherent, as my list 

 will show. The Caricellas were badly classed by Conrad in accordance with 

 trivialities of form. A short branch or offshoot, paralleling in the Scaphelloid 

 series Volutopiipa in the Volutoid series, is afforded by the group of forms in 

 the Paris Basin which have been called Eopsephaa by Dr. Fischer. Their 

 surface-characters are intermediate between Vobitilithes and Fidgoraria, and 

 they have the plaits of VobitUitlies. 



Still, a careful scrutiny of the shells leads me to believe that the pointed 

 nucleus is secondary, as in Caricella and Aitrinia. 



Subgenus Caricella Conrad, 1835. 

 Plate 6, figs. 9, II ; Plate 7, fig. 3. 

 Types C. [Turbinelld] pmtenuis &nd C. {T.) pyriUoides Conrad, 1832-3. 



This group is varied in form from elongate-fusiform to short and Melonoid ; 

 its surface is smooth or variously sculptured ; the pillar has three or more 

 sharp, clear-cut plaits which vary in their inclination with the coil of the shell ; 

 the suture is usually appressed and rarely lineated ; the outer lip recedes in a 

 marked way to the suture ; the canal is wide ; the outer lip is slightly recurved 

 and simple ; the nucleus shows an elevated point when perfect, and the early 

 whorls have a spirally striate sculpture, sometimes ribbed like Volutilitlies, 

 without reference to the sculpture or smoothness of the rest of the shell; the 

 coloration is sometimes preserved, and consisted of dark (red ?), squarish spots 

 in spiral series on a lighter ground, as in the recent Scaphella jiinonia. 



I regard Caricella as a subgenus oi Scaphella, as typified by S.junonia,\.\\Q 

 latter name being the earliest. The persistence of the peculiar sculpture on 

 the early whorls and of the pattern of coloration from the beginning of the 

 Tertiary to the present day is a remarkable instance of the preservation of what 

 appear to be very unimportant characters. 



