﻿194 DEVONIAN FAUNA. 



Description. — Shell very small, subglobose, turbiniform, pointed, of about four 

 very rapidly increasing whorls. Spire broadly conical. Suture well denned, 

 rectangular. Upper whorls small, low, rounded, step-shaped, the width from the 

 suture being rather less than the height of the exposed part. Body-whorl very 

 capacious and oblique ; in section spreading out at first perpendicularly from the 

 suture, and soon rounding with an almost semicircular curvature over the back to 

 the oblique base of the whorl. Ornament consisting of very fine and numerous 

 close, rounded, regular, microscopical, longitudinal threads, crossing the whorl 

 obliquely backwards from the suture. Mouth defective, but probably very large 

 and spreading. 



Size. — Height about 7 mm., width 8 mm. 



Locality. — There is a small specimen in the Torquay Museum, which seems to 

 have come from Lummaton. 



Remarks. — The small specimen described above undoubtedly belongs to Natica 

 piligera, Sandberger, with which it agrees accurately as far as the English speci- 

 men will admit comparison. The drawing given of it (PI. XIX, fig. 2) does 

 not perhaps present a sufficient obliquity of the lower slope of the whorls, so that 

 it is really rather wider and more oblique than there indicated. It will be seen 

 by Sandberger' s figures that the shell varies considerably in shape. In the 

 Torquay specimen there is a decided umbilicus, but in Sandberger's figures it is 

 represented as closed by the callosity of the inner lip. This is probably due to 

 the fact that the body-whorl is really broken away in the Torquay fossil, so that 

 the true aperture is not seen. 



Natica antiqua, 1 Goldfuss, appears to be so similar that I think it must be 

 regarded as the same species, and if so this name has the priority. His figure 

 gives the impression of being less oblique and having a longer spire than Sand- 

 berger's shell, but as the shells are figured in different aspects, and as the two 

 figures given by Sandberger vary much in obliquity, it is not easy to draw any 

 specific distinction between them. 



Natica efossa, another fossil described by Goldfuss, 2 seems to have rather 

 coarser and more irregular strias, and to be a little more oblique, but these 

 differences are so slight that I am disposed to regard it as the same shell. 



Again, in Natica interstrialis, F. A. Romer, 3 the striae seem more irregular and 

 unequal, but it is similar in shape and may be identical, especially as Romer 

 mentions that he has only observed the inequality of striation upon the penultimate 

 whorl of his figured example. 



Under the name of Natica nexicosta, F. A. Romer figures a shell which differs 



1 1844, Goldfuss, ' Petref. Germ.,' vol. iii, p. 117, pi. cxcix, figs. 2 a, b, 



2 Ibid., p. 117, pi. cxcix, figs. 3 a, b. 



3 1850, P. A. Eomer, ' Beitr.,' pt. 1, p. 34, pi. v, figs. 11a, b. 



