Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 33.djvu/94

64 64 P. M. DUNCAN ON THE ECHINODERMATA OF THE Species of the Australian Cainozoic fauna with affinities to the Nummulitic faunas of Europe and India. Tenifiechinus lineatus. Pygorhynchus Vassali (and in Miocene of Malta). Eupatagus rotundus. Lovenia Forbesi. VI. Remarks on the Species. IiEIOCTDARIS AUSTRALIA, Sp. nOY. This form has conjugate pores in the poriferous zone, and therefore is separable from its fellow and equally doubtful subgenus Doroci- daris of the genus Cidaris. These two divisions of Cidaris, how- ever, are very useful. It is interesting to find the form in the Australian Tertiaries, especially when the necessity of recognizing the genus Phyllacanthus as almost a synonym of Leiocidaris brings the Australian species P. annidifer, P. dubius, P. imperialism and P. verticillatus into relation with it. The alliance is strongest with Phyllacanthus dubius, Brandt. This group of genera or subgenera has no species in the recent fauna to the south of Australia, or in the New-Zealand seas, and it belongs rather to the area of the warmer littoral tracts to the north, north-east, and west. The re- semblance of the fossil form to the Cidaridse of Malta, especially to C. Adamsi, Wright, is rather remote ; but, taken in connexion with the resemblances of many of the other fossil Echini of the Austra- lian area to the Maltese, it is significant of a singular homotaxis. This species is not without some resemblance to Cidaris Forch- hammeri, Desor, from the Upper Chalk (Danien) of Erance. Psammechinus "Woodsi, Laube. This species has been noticed by Mr. Etheridge, who has given a figure of its abactinal area in his "Australian Tertiary Echinoderms " (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxxi. pi. xxi. fig. 10), and has thus added to Laube's descriptions and figures (op. cit. p. 185 and figs. 1, la, 16). Laube notices its resemblance to Psammechinus monilis, Defr. (Ealunian), and that Eorbes considers this last to be a living Mediterranean form. The species is very like Echinus macrotuber- culatus, Blainv., of the Mediterranean and Cape-Verd Islands ; and A. Agassiz (op. cit. p. 492) notices the resemblance of this to the recent Echinus magellanicus of New Zealand and South America. Moreover the affinity of P. Woodsi to Echinus angidosus, Agassiz (op. cit. p. 489), is very close. This last is an Echinus not to be distinguished from Psammechinus, and is found in the seas of the Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius, Red Sea, Philippines, and New Zealand. The distinction of Echinus proper and Psammechinus is not even properly subgeneric (see A. Agassiz, op. cit. p. 490) ; and this has been felt by nearly every student of the Echinodermata, from Eorbes to the present time, whenever the recent and fossil Echini have formed part