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.
Obtortio pyrrhacme, Melvill & Standen. — Fig. 6
Obtortio pyrrhacme, Melvill & Standen.
Fig. 6.
Melvill & Standen, Journ. Conch., viii., 1896, p. 310, pl. xi., fig. 70.
These authors describe from Lifu, Loyalty Islands: "A pure white ochre tipped shell, whorls eight or nine, much swollen, longitudinally ribbed, spirally closely sulcate, aperture round, lip simple, a little effuse." This account is illustrated by a figure too small to give details of sculpture, aperture or apex. To identify a species from such data is a little hazardous, but the brown point to the white shell is a peculiar feature which leads me to see in "Rissoa pyrrhacme" a common New Caledonian shell, long known to the local collectors under the, doubtless erroneous, name of "Fenella pupoides, Adams."* I have collected this at Panie, New Caledonia, a day's sail from Lifu, whence Melvill and Standen derived Rissoa pyrrhacme.
* Cf. Schmeltz—Cat. Godeffroy Museum, v., 1874, p. 104.
Rissoa joviana of Melvill and Standen* appears to me to be an absolute synonym of Alaba fulva, Watson, † These and Alaba striata, Watson‡ should enter the same genus as pyrrhacme. Indeed I am not satisfied that all four names do not apply to aspects of one polymorphic species.
* Op. cit., p. 309, pl. xi., fig. 69.
† Chall. Report, xv., 1886, p. 571, pl. xlii., figs. 5 a. b.
‡ Op. cit., 569, pl. xlii., figs. 6 a. b.