NEPTUNEA DESPECTA. 167 



Var. curtispira, nov. Plate XVIII, fig. 0. 



Dimensions. — L. 56 mm. B. 40 mm. 



Distribution. — Icenian Crag : Bramerton. 



Remarl's. — In this form, which I only know from the Icenian or Norwich Crag, 

 the whorls are wonnd upon each other so closely that only the top of each is 

 exposed ; in consequence the spire is short and conical instead of elongate and 

 turreted, as in the Japanese shell last considered, only one of the prominent spiral 

 ribs being shown on each whorl just above the suture ; the shell is smaller, more- 

 over, and the canal is shorter.^ The specimen figured is one of several in the Fitch 

 collection in the Castle Museum at Norwich. Except in the particulars noticed 

 above it nearly agrees with Mr. Sowerby's species, and may be regarded with it, I 

 think, as a variety of N. despecta. 



Var. subspitzbergensis, nov. Plate XIX, figs. 4 — 6. 



1855. Cf. Fusus spitzhevfjensis, Reeve, in Belcher's Last of the Ai-ctic Voyages, vol. ii, p. 395, pi. 



xxxii, fig. 6. 

 1910. Cf. Neptunea despecta, var. Oyeu, Kongl. Norske Videns. Selsk. Slcrift., vol. ix, p. 83, pi. i, 



fig. 2. 



Dimensions. — L. 28 — 42 mm. B. 14 — 20 mm. 



Distribution.— 'Not recorded living. 



Fossil : Waltonian Crag : Little Oakley. Butleyan : Butley. 

 Pleistocene: Trondhjem (?). 



Bemarhs. — I have several small Neptuneas as to the identification of which I 

 have been long in doubt. Two of them (PI. XIX, figs. 5, 6) are from Oakley, and 

 are probably immature ; another from Butley, belonging to the Sedgwick Museum 

 at Cambridge (fig. 4) may be full grown. They appear to be different from 

 anything hitherto reported from the Crag, and except for a small shell from the 

 Pleistocene deposits of Trondhjem described by Dr. 0yen as a variety of N. 

 despecta, which he thinks may be the same, are unknown to my Scandinavian 

 friends. 



The sculpture is of a special character, closely resembling that of N. spitzber- 

 gensis. Submitting photographs of my specimens to Dr. Dall he informs me that 

 he can suggest nothing else to which they can be referred, remarking that out 

 of a number of examples of that species there are usually some which vary in the 

 direction of these Crag fossils. Comparing the latter with Reeve's type shell in the 

 British Museum, however, I am inclined to think that although they belong to the 



1 The canal in the Crag Neptuneas is often shorter than in the Recent species to which they are 

 referred. 



