When Dr C. R. Laws (1936) revised the Pliocene faunule at Kaawa Creek, on the west coast of Auckland 8 miles south of Waikato Heads, he added to the list of bivalves the species Bassina parva Marwick, on the basis of four left valves which he stated were more elongate and lighter in the hinge but otherwise agreed well with topotypes. When Marwick (1927) described B. parva from Okauawa Creek, Hawke's Bay (Nukumaruan), he wrongly stated that his illustrations (pl. 47, figs. 153, 155) were natural size, but they are in fact twice the dimensions of the holotype, an error that doubtless influenced Laws in his identification of the larger specimens from Kaawa.