MELVIIL AND STANDEN : NOTE ON ODOSTOMIA I.UTEA. 363 



labre subtranchant; columelle suboblique, portant dans le haut un pli 

 subascendant. (Mus^e de Bordeaux.) Vu 2 examplaires. 



Var. : (3. De coloration blanche, avec une zone transverse fauve. 



Had. : He Lifou (Loyalty) (R. P. Lambert)." 



3. Syrnola mossiana Melvill & Standen.^ — "..S". fesfa attennata, 

 l(Bvi, fiitida, delicatula, anfradibiis septem, supra subventricosis, apiid 

 suttiras pallide ochraceo cindis, ulthno anfradu redo, prolongato, in medio 

 ochraceo dndo, apice obtuso, apertura oblonga, labro exterior e simplice, 

 columella wiiplicata. Long. 7-50 ;/////. Lat. 2-2^ mill. 



Hab.: Lifu. 



A few specimens only. The shell is smooth, whitish, shining, 

 pyramidal, whorls seven, the upper ones somewhat ventricose, the 

 last whorl straight and produced, with a pale ochraceous median band, 

 this band being also perceptible around the sutures of the upper 

 whorls. The apex is obtuse, outer lip simple, columella with one 

 fold or plait. We have much pleasure in associating with this shell 

 the name of Mr. William Moss, of Ashton-under-Lyne." 



Dr. Andrew Garrett described his O. lufea from the unicolorous 

 yellow-brown or raw sienna form, which with several gradations runs 

 into the rufula of Souverbie. This is, perhaps, the commonest 

 variety. Smooth, with white ground, once spirally fasciated with pale 

 yellow or chestnut banding. 



Of Syrnola mossiana, the type, now in the Manchester Museum, 

 exhibits an albino state, entirely unicolorous white, but, in the original 

 description, the banded variety is mentioned. A comparison of all 

 these forms in our own, the British Museum, and the Manchester 

 Museum collections convinces us that it is necessary to amalgamate 

 the three so-called species under the prior name of O. lutea Garrett. 



It is by no means always easy to separate shells of the larger and 

 more attenuately fusiform Odostomia from other allied genera, e.g., 

 Styloptygma and Syrnola. As regards this present species it seems to 

 embody in it certain characteristics of both these last-named genera. 

 Both it and O. versicolor M. & St., from Lifu, which, indeed, possesses 

 close afifinities with O. aciculina Souv., if indeed, it be not a form of 

 it, are, to our mind, satisfactorily separable from Odostomia but 

 placed in one or other of the kindred Adamsian genera. The late 

 Dr. Arthur Adams' differentiations of certain genera in this family 

 are unfortunately frequently vague and unconvincing, and it is to be 

 wished that a monographer could be found to undertake the herculean 

 task of sorting out the 'Augean stable' where at present repose the 

 multitudinous members of the ancient, but complex, family of 

 PyramidellidEe. 



I "Notes on a Collection of Shells from Lifu and Uvea, Loyalty Islands, fic." Jonrn. 

 Conch., vol. 8, p. 122, pi. 2, fig. 16, 1895. 



