Notes of a critical examination of the Mollusca of the older tertiary of Tasmania, alleged to have living representatives

Mr. R. M. Johnston, in Proc. Roy. Soc, Tasmania, 1880, p. 31,gives a list of Table Cape fossils, which have been referred to existing species. As I think that some of them have been incorrectly identified I am desirous to give explanatory reasons for the adoption of other names. Before doing so, I may remark that in my presidential address to the Royal Society of South Australia, vol. ii., p. lvi., 1879, I gave a list of 24 living species of various classes which existed in the Australian seas during Eocene and Miocene times, five of the molluscs are included in Mr. Johnston's list; moreover, I stated that "other fossils have been referred to living species—to Trivia Europoea, Leiostraca subulata, Lima subauriculata, Liotia lamellosa, etc., but competent authorities have not confirmed these identifications." In the accompanying table I have set side by side the Table Cape fossil species and the recent forms with which some of them have been confounded; the names of the fossil species represented in living creation are printed in italic.