246 TRANSACTIONS OF THE WAGNER FREE 



the young A''. IVillcoxiidind splendidula in exhibiting beside the usual peripheral 

 and umbilical keels several raised lines (one to three) behind the periphery 

 and (one or two) on the base of the last whorl, beside having the entire sur- 

 face obscurely spirally striate with semi-obsolete microscopic strije ; the basal 

 keel is more rounded than in any other American species, recent or fossil, and 

 the aperture shows hardly any angle corresponding to the peripheral keel. 

 The largest specimen has (without the lost nucleus) eleven whorls, with a total 

 length of 1 2 and diameter of 5 mm. 



The characters by which this shell is distinguished from others of the 

 genus are not so feeble as would seem at first sight, when the remarkable uni- 

 formity of the species is taken into consideration. There are no well-marked 

 remains of color-pattern, but narrow flammules alternately opaque and more 

 translucent, which are visible on very close examination, may correspond to a 

 vanished color-pattern. 



The figure given by Conrad in the Am. Journal of Conchology is so 

 very poor that until the specimen was compared with Conrad's type no doubt 

 existed in my mind that Mr. Johnson's fossil belonged to a different species. 



The figure prepared of it before this impression was dispelled may aid in 

 preventing some other student who cannot visit the Philadelphia collection 

 from being led into a similar error. Lea's figure is fairly good, and as Con- 

 rad's diagnosis was insufficient to recognize the species by in the absence of 

 his type-specimen, it is probable that his name should be rejected in favor of 

 that given by Lea. 



Family PYRAMIDELLID^. 

 Genus PYRAMIDELLA Lamarck. 



The type of this genus is the P. dolabrata, from which it follows that 

 Obelisciis is an absolute synonym, and if the genus be divided, as has been 

 done by Gray and Adams, the short-ribbed forms for which they kept the 

 name Pyramidella cannot retain it. 



This group, according to Zittel, is known from the Cretaceous, but, so far 

 as the writer is aware, the earliest American species yet recorded is from the 

 Claiborne sands, and this, though fairly typical when adult, is when young so 

 like an Odontostovda that it has been referred to that genus by De Gregorio 

 in his recent monograph of the Claiborne fauna. It is probable he did not 

 possess a mature example of the species, which was briefly described by Say 

 and Mortoh in Conrad's name on page 46 of Part IV. of his " Fossils of the 

 Tertiary Formation " with the designation of P. larvata. It was never figured 

 by Conrad, but two months or less after the appearance of the leaflet above 

 mentioned it was described and recognizably figured by Mr. Lea in his Con- 

 tributions to Geology, under the name of Actceon elevaius, and a minute tip of 

 the same species was named by Lea A. pygmceus. As Conrad's (or Say and 

 Morton's) diagnosis was insufficient by itself to identify the species, it seems 



