THE MOLLUSCA HEDLEY. 



413 



together constituting a mucronate tip. On the next whorl, which 

 is also tabulate, the longitudinal sculpture almost disappears and 

 spiral lyne arise. Subsequently these latter are cancellated by a 

 reappearance of the longitudinal ribs. Aperture oval with a 

 broad and reflected columella, no varix. 



Type Rissoa pyrrhacme, Melvill & Standen. 



OBTORTIO PYRRHACME, Melvill & Standen. 



Fig. 6. 



Melvill & Standen, Journ. Conch., viii., 1896, p. 310, pi. xi., 

 fig. 70. 



These authors describe from Lifu, Loyalty Islands : "A pure 

 white ochre tipped shell, whorls eight or nine, much swollen, 

 longitudinally ribbed, spirally closely sulcate, aperture round, lip 

 simple, a little effuse." This account is illustrated by a figure too 

 small to give details of sculpture, aperture or apex. To identify 

 a species from such data is a little hazardous, but the brown point 

 to the white shell is a peculiar feature which leads me to see in 

 "Rissoa pyrrhacme" a common New Caledonian shell, long known 

 to the local collectors under the, doubtless erroneous, name of 

 "Fenella pupoides, Adams.''* I have collected this at Panie, 

 New Caledonia, a day's sail from Lifu, whence Melvill and Standen 

 derived Rissoa pyrrhacme. 



Among shell sand on the lagoon 

 beach of Funafuti I gathered a 

 dozen specimens specifically in- 

 separable from the Panie shells 

 which I thus identified. They are 

 smaller than Melvill and Standen 's 

 specimens, being barely four milli- 

 metres in length, whereas theirs 

 are six, the tips, unlike my Panie 

 examples, are faintly and barely 

 touched with colour, as if singed by 

 fire. In contour they exhibit much 

 variety ; two examples are drawn 

 to the same scale to illustrate diversity of proportion, perhaps a 

 sexual feature. The apex, which I hold to exhibit characters of 

 generic importance, consists first of two very minute whorls which 

 are almost buried in the succeeding whorl. These are very diffi- 

 cult to observe, being seen in two instances only in the series 

 examined. A globose whorl, longitudinally ribbed, sometimes 

 only obliquely wrinkled, commences the real spire. This, the 

 subsequent whorl and the tip, together form an acicular point to 

 the shell when viewed through a hand-lens. The second, third, 

 and fourth whorls are tabulate, lending a pagoda aspect to the 



Fig. 6. 



* Cf. Schraeltz Cat. Godeffroy Museum, v., 1874, p. 104. 



