It differs from any previous members of this species seen by the writer in having only obsolete axials on the body-whorl, and so presenting a strong ficoid appearance externally.

Fascioplex browni n.sp. (Plate 25; Fig. 30.)

Shell fusiform, turreted, imperforate; spire two-thirds height of aperture and canal. Whorls strongly angled, base contracting rather quickly to (apparently) a straight canal. Sculpture: spire whorls with nine, body whorl with ten strong, vertically compressed, sharp tubercles on the shoulder angle. Although compressed vertically, the tubercles are set on axials of moderate strength but somewhat irregular definition. Shoulder with two weak spiral threads also with traces of an interstitial and of other spirals. Below the shoulder are six strong, distant imbricate cords, mostly with two or three weak, well spaced secondary spiral threads. The whole surface bears strong laciniate, sinuous growth-ridges, about one per millimeter, quite trophonid in appearance. Sutures appressed, high up on the preceeding whorl. Columella having at its base two strong, oblique plaits, the lower somewhat stronger, between them a well defined channel.

Height, 35 mm.; diameter, 24 mm.

Locality: G. S. 1988. Greensands, in abandoned rail cutting, Waihao Downs.

This species resembles F. liraecostata in sculpture but is easily distinguished by the high, staged spire. Also the canal, though broken, appears to have been straight, and there is no sign of any fasciole.

?Fascioplex n.sp. (Plate 25; Fig. 32.)

A fragment of the body whorl of a shell shows in section a spiny sculpture, in part at least, set on a muriciform varix. The columella has, at its junction with the long, slightly curved canal, two strong plaits, the lower somewhat stronger and the two forming a narrow, deep, oblique channel. These columellar folds agree closely with those of Fascioplex but the canal appears to be much longer and narrower. The sculpture, as far as can be seen, suggests the Muricidae. The shell is apparently rare, as only the one fragment has been seen; and a certain placing of it must wait for further specimens. The species previously described, Fascioplex browni, forms, with its sharply raised trophonid ridges a kind of link between this peculiar Muriciform shell and Fascioplex.

Falsicolus altus (Marshall). (Plate 25; Fig. 27.)

1919. Fusinus altus Marsh. Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. 51, p. 229, pl. 16, fig. 5.

Judged from more than a dozen fragmentary specimens, F. altus appears to differ consistently from bensoni Allan which was synonymised with it by Finlay (1930, p. 260). The ribs are more numerous in altus, being from 11 to 12 per whorl, against the nine of bensoni. Except on the last whorl or so, the ribs of altus are not tuberculed as in bensoni, so that the spire whorls are convex instead of angled. Certainly the species are closely related, and F. solidus (Suter) is perhaps intermediate between the two. Of course the whole question of what is a species immediately arises, but it cannot be adequately discussed here. However, it may be stated that the species envisaged is a convenient group of individuals sufficiently interrelated to maintain a reasonably uniform set of genetic characters.