MURICID.E. 477 



think, been separated from his Canalifera on very slight 

 malacological grounds; so much so, that though the com- 

 mentators, in the last edition of his ' Animaux sans Vertebres/ 

 state that the Purpurae are sufficiently distinguished from the 

 Murices, I must dissent from that opinion, and challenge the 

 production of even one essentially distinct generic character 

 between the two families. There are about twenty-two genera 

 which have sprung from Murex and Buccinum, whereof six or 

 seven embrace British species, and fourteen or fifteen the exotic. 



The present arrangement of the moderns appears to rest 

 altogether on artificial generic characters derived solely from 

 the hard parts of the animal. Conchologists have thought, 

 that because the Muricidal animal, as I designate the Bucci- 

 num of authors, has a short emarginate canal, and those named 

 Fusus and Murex have more extended ones, some of them 

 being smooth and others varicose, they must be generically 

 distinct animals : this is a great mistake. We are enabled to 

 say, from a sedulous examination of the animals of all the 

 genera, including the greater part of the British species, except 

 the larger and deep-sea Murices termed Fusi, that they are 

 identical in organic structure, and differ from each other in 

 colour and slight specialties of the soft and hard parts, no 

 more than may be observed in the different varieties of the 

 human race : for the short man, with the short neck and in- 

 flated trunk, in comparison with the tall, thin, slender indivi- 

 dual, does not constitute a different genus; neither is the 

 tumid Buccinum or Dolium with the short canal, generically 

 distinct from the more spindle-shaped Murices, the Fusi of 

 authors. For these reasons w r e are bound to consult nature 

 in preference to artificial considerations. 



The animals of all the modern genera of the Canalifera and 

 Purpurifera, the proceeds of the dismemberment of the genera 

 Murex and Buccinum, are zoophagous, and have the flat pro- 

 boscidal head, which is rarely produced so as to intercept the 

 basal coalition of the tentacula, which carry eyes externally at 

 different portions of their lengths. The buccal fissure is at the 

 centre of the tentacular veil or head, placed somewhat in- 

 feriorly ; from this a long retractile proboscis is exserted, 



