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Aesopus stearnsii (Tryon) is one of the relatively few
species that has persisted from the Tertiary times to the
Recent in approximately the same habitat.
Distribution: North Carolina: Duplin marl, Natural Well, 2
miles southwest of Magnolia. Waccamaw formation Cronly,
and at Neills Eddy Landing, 3 miles north of Cronly, Columbus
County.
Outside distribution: Pliocene, Waccamaw formation, Tilly
Lake, Horry County, S. C. Caloosahatchee marl, Caloosahatchee
River, Fla. Recent, Cape Fear to Tampa Bay in less than 50
fathoms; dredged off the North Carolina coast in 12 fathoms;
dredged off west Florida in 15 to 17 fathoms, sandy bottom.
A esopus? smithfieldensis (Mansfield)
Pia te 28, figures 23-25
1929. Colurnbella (Seminella) smith{ieldensis Mansfield, U. S.
Nat. Mus. Proc., vol. 74, p. 4, pl. 1, figs. 6, 7.
Shell small, stout, rather fragile, spirally sculptured, having
body whorl longer tha,n spire, consisting of 1% nuclear and
three postnuclear whorls. Nuclear whorls large, smooth, moderately
inflated, constricted at the suture, apical one bluntly
rounded. Postnuclear whorls rather rapidly enlarging and
broadly rounded in outline. Suture grooved, not appressed.
Sculpture of (on the penultimate whorl, five) slightly raised,
paired, spiral lines, the individual lines composing each pair
being separated from each other by a narrow groove and the
pairs from each other by an interspace about equal to their
width. The spirals extend forward to the end of the canal.
Very fine axial growth lines connect the paired spirals. Aperture
elongate-subovate, 'outer lip thin, margin crenulate. Pillar
at its lower margin provided with a fold, forming the inner and
upper edge of the short and curved siphonal canal. The new
species may not be mature.
Dirnensions.-Type (Cat. No. 352438, U.S.N.M.), altitude,
3.8 mm.; diameter, 1.6 mm.; length of aperture, 1.5 mm.; width,
0.7mm.
Type locality.-U. S. G. S. Sta. 1/205, uppermost bed in section
along a small stream flowing into Tormentor Creek, about
2 miles north of Smithfield, Va. (W. C. Mansfield, collector.)
Occurrence.-Yorktown formation, zone 2, middle part; only
known from type locality.-Mansfield, 1929.
Mansfield's type suggests a young Aesopus rather
than 0 olwmbella ( S ern in ella) .
The same species is probably represented by another
juvenile (U.S.N.M. 325409) , from the Yorktown formation
of Colerain Landing, Bertie County, N. C.
Slight differences in outline and sculptural detail
characterize 2 closely related species represented by
. juveniles from the Yorktown formation at Colerain
Landing, Chowan River, Bertie County, N. C. (U. S.
N. M. 325411, pl. 28, fig. 33); and from the Waccamaw
formation at Neills Eddy Landing on the Cape Fear
River (U.S.N.M. 325408, pl. 28, figs. 8, 13).
Family BUCCINIDAE
Genus PTYCHOSALPINX Gill
1867. PtychosalpinoJ Gill, Am. Jour. Conchology, vol. 3,· p. 153.
Type by original designation: Buccinurn aztile Conrad. Miocene,
of Virginia and North Carolina.
Shell ovate, buccinoid, with the whorls regularly rounded
and ventricose; the spire moderate (about as long as aperture;)
furnished with equal revolving linear ridges, siphonal canal
PART 2. SCAPHOPODA AND GASTROPODA 233
very short, very obliquely twisted, and concurrent with the siphonal
fasciole; aperture rhombo-ovate, oblong; labrum entire,
not sinuous, smooth within; columella inversely sigmoidal,
concave near the middle, with a very thin callous deposit, and
with a revolving marginal linear plait in front.
This genus is related to Buccinum, with which its species have
been confounded, but differs in too many respects to be properly
associated with B. undaturn and its allies in a natural genus;
it is distinguished from Buccinurn as represented by the type
named,.by the more oblique canal and its concurrence with the
siphonal fasciole, the linear fold in front of the columella, the
esinuate labrum as well as by the sculpture. The American
species have recently been referred to Tritia, a subdivision of
Nassa, but probably through inadvertence. The known representatives
of the genus are extinct and characteristic of the
later Tertiary formation, one being found in the Miocene beds
of Yorktown, Virginia, and a second in the Upper Tertiary beds
at Monthelan in Touraine, (France).-Gill, 1867.
Ptychosalpinw is readily differentiated from Ilyanassa,
which it somewhat resembles in general outline,
by the uniform absence of transverse striations on the
inner surface of the labrum and the more pronounced
basal constriction of the body whorl.
The genus seems particularly characteristic of the
middle Miocene of the middle Atlantic Coastal Plain
and the waters in which it flourished were doubtless very
shallow. It has been suggested by Dall that his Sipho?
globulus, collected by the Blake expedition, may be referable
to this genus, hitherto supposed 'to be confined
to the Tertiary. Cossmann ( 1901) refers "Buccinum escheri
Mayer-Eymar" from the Helvetian of the
Touraine, France to Ptychosalpinw, but this single record
of the genus in extra-East American seas has not
been verified.
Ptychosalpinx altilis (Conrad) Gill
Plate 31, figures 14, 17
1832. Buccinurn altile Conrad, Fossil shells of the Tertiary
formation of North America, p. 19, pl. 4, fig. 6.
1867. Ptychosalpin:c altilis (Conrad). Gill, Am. Jour. Conchology,
vol. 3, p. 154.
1868. Ptydhosalpin:c altilis Conrad, Am. Jour. Conchology, vol.
3, p. 262.
1892. Ptychosalpin:c altilis Conrad. Dall, Wagner Free Inst.
Sci. Trans., vol. 3, pt. 2, p. 237.
1901. C orninella ( Ptychosalpin:c) altilis (Conrad) , Cossmann,
Essais paleoconchologie comp., vol. 4, p. 150, pl. 6,
fig. 19 .
Subovate, with numerous longitudinal undulations and obtuse
spiral striae; body whorl rather ventricose; spire conical;
apex obtuse.
Locality: James River near Smithfield, Virginia.-Conrad,
1832.
It is exceedingly unfortunate that the character of
the type species of the genus should not be susceptible of
clear definition. There are apparently two races involved;
a representative of one has been figured by
Conrad, the other by Gill. I have been unable, however,
to find either Conrad's type in the collections of
the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, or Gill's
in the U. S. National Museum. Conrad's description