MARGINELLA. Panama Shells. 41 



Station. From 5 to 13 fathoms sandy mud ; Hinds ! copied 



by Sowerby. 



We found these molluscs on a flat of liquid mud, a little 

 above low water mark. On the surface of this mud they 

 were moving about with great vivacity while the tide was out. 



Babttat.--P&nsLm& ; Hinds ! copied by Sowerby. 

 Panama ; E. Jewett ! Gould M>s. f 

 Panama ; C. B. A. ! 



Mr. Hinds calls this species the American analogue " of 

 M. prunum Gm. (syn. M. coerulescens Lam.) but Mr. Sowerby 

 assigns M. prunum to Panama as its habitat! A little east 

 of Panama we obtained 40 living specimens of M. sapotilla, 

 and also collected many dead shells on the beach above the 

 No specimen of M. prunum was found. The 

 latter, however, occurs abundantly in some parts of the Ca- 

 ribbean sea. We have obtained in Jamaica a large number 

 of this species, said to have been taken on the keys south of 

 that Island, and the Hon. Edward Chitty, of J., kindly gave 

 us a parcel said to have been collected at Curagoa. Inde- 

 pendently of the testimony, the other shells, which were 

 mingled with these parcels, were all Caribbean species 

 Without affirming anything respecting the existence of M. 

 prunum on the west coast of Africa,* we may therefore safely 

 say that it is the Caribbean species, as M. sapotilla is the 

 Pacific species of tropical America. 



* Mr. J. H. Redfield, the best authority in reference to this genus, informs 

 t he has examined many parcels of shells collected in the Gambia reTn at 

 Cape Palmas, and the I. of St. Thomas, in the Gulf of Guinea, and has nevt been 

 able to hnd any evidence that the M. prunum inhabits West Africa. Mr - 



gests hat by some means Adan.on may have been in error, and that his error hf 

 been simply copied by all subsequent authors. 



