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The Atoll of Funafuti, Ellice group : its zoology, botany, ethnology and general structure based on collections made by Charles Hedley of the Australian Museum, Sydney, N.S.W.

Cerithium Spiculum, sp. nov. — (Fig. 21)

Cerithium Spiculum, sp. nov.
(Fig. 21).

Shell narrow, subulate, with a sharply-pointed spire and a rounded base. Colour dull white, distantly, faintly, irregularly, and minutely spotted with chestnut. Whorls eleven, slowly increasing, somewhat turreted, flattened. Sculpture—on the uppermost whorls the spiral ridges are tuber-culated by longitudinal plications which rapidly diminish as the growth proceeds. On the last whorl their influence is barely perceptible in faint, shallow, longitudinal undulations. A stout varix occurs a third of a whorl behind the aperture; from four to ten, raised, spiral cords encircle each whorl, in the interstices of which are fine spiral threads. Aperture perpendicular, oval; outer lip straight and sharp; canal very short, turned abruptly outwards. Length 11, breadth 4 mm.

Fig. 21.

Fig. 21.

Two specimens were obtained in the outer beach of Nukulailai.

This form appears allied to C. lacteum, Kiener,* from which it differs by smaller size, narrower outline, and absence of granulations.

* Kiener—Coquilles Vivantes, Canaliferes i., (n.d.), p. 58, pl. vii., figs. 3, 3a.