460 PELORIDJE. 



of that muricidal animal, the mechanism of lanthina will be 

 better appreciated by comparison. Therefore, after M. Cu- 

 vier's particular and minute account, that the proboscis in this 

 species is a great and inflated, though short muzzle, which can 

 be retracted within the buccal sheath, we must bow to such 

 high authority ; but independantly of this fact, there are other 

 characters which sufficiently declare that this extraordinary 

 animal can have no other allocation than in the vicinity of the 

 Muricidae. 



This is the only species I have had an opportunity of exa- 

 amining ; one or two other rarer ones are sometimes found 

 in company with it, as the lanthina exigua and /. pallida ; 

 the last I think is only a variety of the present species. 

 These animals have no operculum. 



The following has not occurred to me alive : 



I. EXIGUA, Lamarck. 

 I. exigua, Brit. Moll. ii. p. 555, pi. 69. f. 8, 9. 



SCALAR! A, Lamarck. 



V 



This genus contains several British species. Authors and 

 Lamarck's commentators say, that it is allied to Turritella, 

 but I think that it has much greater affinity with the Canali- 

 fera. Turritella and Scalaria, in addition to the single bran- 

 chial plume, appear to have the mucous strands of the Muricidae, 

 which are always provided with that appendage, besides the 

 gland of viscosity. In other points, Turrit ella, by its short, 

 produced muzzle, circular operculum, and the absence of a 

 proboscis, comes nearer to the Littorinte and Trochi, whilst 

 Scalaria, with the mucous fillets, has also the decided pro- 

 boscis of the Canalifera ; consequently it must be assigned, 

 as a muricidal anomaly, to the new family of the Peloridcs. 

 However, whatever may be the affinities of the two genera, 

 they will not be far apart ; the one claiming, by its slightly 

 developed canal, both of shell and mantle, to take position on 

 the confines of the Holostomata, the other on those of the 

 Canalifera. An attentive perusal of the account of the under- 

 mentioned species will show that the Scalarite are truly strange 



