158 Edwin A shby : 



Lcpido pie urns iredaiei differs from L. inquinatus. Reeve, in 

 that the girdle is clothed with comparatively large, flattened, irre- 

 gular scales, quite different from the Tasmanian shell, in which 

 species the scales are like minute, irregular grains of sand. In 

 -common with the other species, the girdle is furnished with a 

 -spiculose fringe, but in some of the specimens before me the 

 girdle is almost otherwise bare of spicules. Evidently this 

 .character is not constant, for the specimen I have selected for 

 the type has small bunches of spicules at the sutures, and in 

 .several of the others this feature is just discernible in a few 

 places. Mr. Iredale must have overlooked this character 

 when he placed the Neozelandic shell, and Reeve's inquinatus 

 .among the group that have no spicules. 



Undoubtedly the New Zealand shell is barely spiculose as com- 

 pared with some of the Australian species, but, as I have shown, 

 -spicules are not entirely absent. It seems doubtful whether the 

 non-existence of spicules is a sufficient ground for generic or 

 sub-generic separation in the Lepidopleuridae, for the range of 

 divergence in this respect is very great, even in the same species. 



To sum up — L. liratus, Ad. and Ang. is more spiculose than 

 L. inquinatus, Reeve, and the latter is more spiculose than is 

 the case with the Neozelandic shell. The latter is more rounded 

 than the Tasmanian, and the polished appearance is more per- 

 sistent. 



Colour. — The dark specimens vary from liver brown to hazel 

 (plate xiv., Ridgway's Colour Standards), and the lighter colour 

 : in the paler forms is cinnamon (pi. xxix). 



Measurement. — The largest of the specimens before me is 14 

 x 7 mm., and the one I have selected as the type, because it shows 

 the sutural spicules more distinctly, is 8 x 4J mm., dry specimens. 



Habitat. — The type is from Doubtless Bay, New Zealand, col- 

 lected by Mr. Albert E. Brooks, to whom my acknowledgments 

 are due for the specimens. 



I cannot separate the Doubtless Bay specimens from one from 

 Auckland Harbour, collected by the late Mr. Suter in 1895. The 

 -.type, for the present, remains in my possession. 



