Gazameda maoria: Shell stout, narrowly attenuate, outlines straight, base very slightly convex, periphery angulate, narrowly rounded. Whorls 10, including a moderately large, glossy, obtusely-rounded protoconch of 1 ½ whorls. Spire whorls sculptured with 12 narrow, rounded, low spiral cords with a tiny thread in each narrow interspace. The body-whorl has 13 cords, a broader one at the periphery, and nine weaker ones on the base. Aperture quadrate, outer lip with a broadly rounded moderately deep median sinus. Colour white with a pattern of regularly-spaced flexuous broad streaks of reddish-brown. These streaks are interrupted by the broader peripheral cord, but continue over the base as a rotary pattern converging around the columella.

Height, 15·75 mm.; diameter, 4·25 mm. (holotype).

Holotype in writer's collection, Auckland Museum.

Locality: Between Spirits Bay and Three Kings Islands in 50 fathoms.

This species adds a genus to the New Zealand fauna. The genotype is from New South Wales, others are known from Tasmania, Victoria and South Australia.

The absolutely straight spire outline, paucispiral, smooth globular protoconch, and evenly developed spirals are features fully in accord with Gazameda and opposed to the New Zealand group Zeacolpus, which has a deeply indented spire outline caused by two of the spiral cords developing as strong keels.

Both this and the preceding species are known only from single specimens, and neither is quite fully grown.

Shell not very large, elevated, and many-whorled, with 1 prominent keel, thin and fragile. Sculpture : The first two whorls are smooth ; the next two have a sharp keel on the middle ; on the succeeding whorls this keel is gradually getting lower down, till it is situate at the lower third of the whorl, but it always remains the most conspicuous of the cinguli ; from the fifth whorl down a number of fine spiral threads appear above and below the principal keel, and one of them, situate at the upper third of the whorl, is getting somewhat stronger than the others ; the fine threads are unequal in strength, usually the finer and thicker threads are alternating ; base with very fine unequal spiral fines. Colour whitish, obscurely flamed with light fulvous. Spire high, narrowly conic ; outlines straight. Protoconch of 2 smooth, convex, and slightly angled whorls. Whorls 14 to 15, regularly increasing, slantingly flattened, but sometimes slightly concave above and below the keel ; body-whorl sharply angled ; base flattish. Suture impressed. Aperture subquadrangular, vertical. Outer lip sharp and thin, with a rather deeply rounded sinus a little below the middle ; outer and basal lip slightly produced upon the keel bounding the base. Columella vertical, but little callous. Inner lip slightly spreading beyond the columella above, and as a thin and polished glaze over the parietal whorl. Operculum unknown. Diameter, 6,5 mm. ; length, 22 mm. (specimen of 10 whorls). Angle of spire, 18°.
Animal unknown.
Type in the British Museum.
Hab.—Great Barrier Island; off Great Barrier Island, in 110 fathoms ; off Cuvier Island, in 37 fathoms (Captain Bollons) ; near Channel Island, Hauraki Gulf, in 25 fathoms.
Fossil.—Miocene and Pliocene.