Description of a new species of fossil Loricella (order Polyplacophora). With remarks on some undescribed characters present in Loricella angasi, Ad. and Ang., and L.torri, Ashby

Mr. E. D. Atkinson, early in September last, sent me a very beautiful valve of a Chiton which he had obtained at Table Cape, a locality that has yielded to him and his son many fine forms of fossil mollusca. Three species of Loricella from the same locality, and the result of the joint work of the two, were described by Mr. A. F. Basset Hull (in Proc. Lin. Soc. of New South Wales, 1914, Vol. XXXIX., Pt. 4). Since receiving the specimen herein described from Mr. Atkinson, he has passed away. He was an assiduous collector, and many fine forms have been discovered as a result of his earnest labours, and we all owe a debt to his memory. Mr. Hull, in the paper before mentioned, comments on the large number of species belonging to the genera Loricella and Lorica represented in the Table Cape deposits, and the apparent dwindling of species in recent times. He states that the genus Loricella "is represented by a single living "species," and, speaking of the genus Lorica, which also is well represented in the same beds, he says "one only Lorica volvox, Reeve, is still extant." Since Mr. Hull wrote thus, three living forms of this latter genus have been recognised, two of which are Australian, and one from New Zealand, also a second species of Loricella has been described by the writer, who, in addition, foreshadows the probability of yet another species being recognised. While it is evident that these southern seas were exceptionally rich in species belonging to these two genera at the time the Table Cape Beds were laid down, recent research indicates that both genera are better represented by living forms than was thought to be the case when Mr. Hull's paper was written