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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.

Triforis clio, sp. nov. — (Fig. 30)

Triforis clio, sp. nov.
(Fig. 30).

Shell rather small and slender. Colour cinnamon-brown, lowest row of gemmules and extremity of canal white, other gemmules pale brown. Whorls fifteen. Protoconch five whorled; first two together swollen and subglobose, shagreened, remainder bicarinate by a median furrow and crossed by numerous fine bars which bead the carinæ. The adult whorls are beset by first two, then three, and finally four spiral rows of gemmules, eighteen to a whorl, set vertically, gemmule above gemmule, up the spire. Broad furrows ascend vertically from whorl to whorl, deeper than the spiral interspaces which part row from row. The gemmules are lozenge shaped, polished, standing half their length apart and linked to their neighbours in a row by a coloured band smoother and shallower than the remainder of the vertical furrow, of which it forms a part. Between the gemmules the surface is roughened by close fine spiral hair lines. Two unbeaded cords run round the base. Aperture nearly vertical, outer lip bending round a page 444
Fig. 30.

Fig. 30.

shallow rounded anal notch, then deeply emarginate and finally much produced, crossing the pillar in a spur. Canal short and rather sharply recurved. Length 5½, breadth 1¾ mm.

Three examples were found in shallow water in the Funafuti lagoon. The most mature, depicted here, is possibly not quite adult and the anal notch may attain a further development.

The lozenge shaped gemmules and the exceptional feature of the longitudinal furrows being deeper than the transverse assist in distinguishing the species.