118 PALEONTOLOGY OF NEW JERSEY. 



Family NATICID^E. 



Genus NATICA Lamarck. 



Natica (Lunatia) hemicrypta. 



PI. xxn, figs. 1-5. 



Natica hemicrypta Gabb: Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 2d ser., vol. 4, p. 375, PI. lxvii, 

 fig. 5; HeiJprin, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Pkila., pp. 399 and 404. 



Not N. hemicrypta Conrad, cited as a synonym of N. Caroliniana, Proc. Acad. Nat. 

 Sci. Phila., 1862, p. 564. 



Mr. Gabb describes this species in the following language: " Globose; 

 whorls four, rounded; spire elevated, suture faint; mouth rounded; callosity 

 small, partly covers the umbilicus, which is deep, surface smooth." 



Mr. Gabb had only small specimens of this species, and gives an 

 enlarged figure of one of them. Specimens occur which are fully as large 

 as his enlarged figure, or of nearly half an inch in height. The spire is 

 elevated as described above, but the aperture is more properly semilunate, 

 and somewhat narrowed above and the base rounded. The callus is wholly 

 confined to the upper half of the umbilicus, and the perforation narrow and 

 deep. The surface is without other markings than the fine lines of growth. 

 A single individual which I think may "be identical is very much larger, 

 having been fully five-eighths of an inch high by half an inch in diameter. 

 The spire is imperfect, and the umbilicus rather larger in proportion than in 

 any of the other specimens, creating some doubt as to its identity. 



Mr. Conrad cites this species as identical with his N. Caroliniana, I 

 think wrongly. His original figure of that species is certainly a very dis- 

 tinct shell from this one, as may readily be seen by the nature of the callus 

 as there shown; and it is properly described in his words " umbilicus large, 

 with a central rounded prominent thick carina;" while the umbilicus is open 

 above the carina as well as below it, which is not the case in the New Jersey 

 shells; the upper part always being covered, or more properly closed. 

 Messrs. Tuomey and Holmes figure a specimen in their Pliocene Foss. of 

 South Carolifta, PL xxv, fig. 18, which is most probably identical with the 

 New Jersey shell; w T hile they almost copy Mr. Conrad's description of N. 

 Caroliniana, and identify their shell with that species incorrectly. 



