Comindld.] GASTROPODA. 387 



6. Cominella maculosa, Martyn, 1784. Plate 45, fig- 8. 



Buccinum maculosum, Mart., Un. Conch., i, 1784, f. 8. Purpura maculosa, 

 Mart. : Gray, Dieff. N.Z., 233. Cominella maculosa, Mart. : Suter, 

 T.N.Z.I., xxxviii, 329. Buccinum testudineum, Chemnitz, Conch. Cab., 

 x, pi. 152, f. 1454 (not binomial). Purpura testudinea. Lam. : Gray, 

 Yate N.Z., 308. Buccinum testudineum, Lam., Voy. Astrol., ii, 415, 

 pi. 30, f. 8-11 ; Hutton, C.M.M., 15; Reeve, Conch. Icon., iii, pi. 9. f. 66. 

 Cominella testudinea, v. Martens, Crit. List, 19 ; Kobelt, Jahrb. d. 

 Deutsch. Mai. Ges., 1878, 233; Hutton, J. de Conch., 1878, 18; 

 M.N.Z.M., 53 ; T.N.Z.I., xvi, 231 ; Tryon, Man. Conch. (1), iii, 203, 

 pi. 80, f. 414, 415. Purpura catarracta, Chm. : Gray, Dieff. N.Z., 234. 



Shell moderately large, elongated oval, solid, usually tessellated 

 with yellowish and dark brown. Sculpture : The apparently smooth 

 surface is finely microscopically spirally striate, and the flexuous 

 growth-lines are also fine and inconspicuous ; very rarely spiral lirse 

 are present. Colour yellowish-white, light brown, or greenish-grey, 

 tessellated with purplish-brown ; sometimes with spiral bands of 

 purplish spots, very rarely forming continuous lines ; aperture bluish- 

 grey within, inner lip brown, outer lip with a broad dark - brown 

 band inside, margin orange interrupted by brown lines and spots ; 

 sometimes deep orange takes the place of purple. Spire conical, 

 its height less than that of the aperture ; outlines almost straight. 

 Protoconch minute, smooth, nucleus convex. Whorls about 7, the last 

 very high, flattened, depressed below the suture ; base contracted 

 above the fasciole. Suture not deep, sometimes narrowly margined 

 below. Aperture subvertical, oval, narrowly and deeply channelled 

 above, with an oblique short and widely open canal, its base very 

 deeply notched. Outer lip convex, sinuated, sharp, thickened and 

 lirate within. Columella vertical, but little excavated, angularly 

 truncated below. Inner lip extending rather broadly over the pillar 

 and the parietal wall, which bears a tubercle below the suture ; below 

 the lip is broadly reflexed over the umbilical area, narrowed to a 

 triangular thick lamella, which forms the inner margin of the canal. 

 Fasciole prominent, thick, carinated. Operculum horny, dark brown, 

 oval, with the nucleus apical. 



Diameter, 23 mm. ; height, 42 mm. : angle of spire, 47 - 50. 

 Diameter, 26 mm. ; height. 54 mm. (specimen, Lyttelton Harbour). 

 Diameter, 24 ; height, 40 mm. (specimen, Auckland Harbour). 



Dentition. Hogg, Trans. Roy. Micr. Soc., 1868, pi. 10, f. 33; 

 Hutton, T.N.Z.I., xv, 120, pi. 13, f. M, N. 



Type lost. 



Hob. From the Bay of Islands to Banks Peninsula ; Chatham 

 Islands ; Kermadec Islands. Brought to England by Captain Cook. 



Remarks.- The shells, are mostly much corroded. When the egg- 

 depositing period arrives a score or more animals congregate under 

 large stones, and the egg-capsules are deposited on the stone, and very 

 often on the shells of other individuals, in clusters of thirty to forty. 



13* 



