150 THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



Station 188. September 10, 1874. Lat. 9° 59' S., long. 139° 42' E. West of Cape 

 York, off S.W. point of Papua. 28 fathoms. Green mud. 



Shell. — Thinnisb, ashy white, globose, with a short scalar spire, spinous whorls, a 

 largish smooth waxy irregularly tipped apex (which is quite overtopped by the spines 

 from the outer lip upward), an oval mouth, deeply crenulated outer lip, short rounded 

 base, and a very fine produced, almost straight, long-spined snout. Sculpture: Longitu- 

 dinals — there are on each whorl three narrow corresponding varices, scarcely visible on the 

 earlier whorls, and chiefly marked on the last by the series of long thin front-furrowed 

 spines which adorn them ; of these spines there are 6 (or 7 ?) on the last varix, 6 on 

 the penultimate, and 5 on the preceding one ; the highest is very little bent, and rises on 

 each whorl high above the apex, being almost parallel to the axis of the shell ; the others, 

 which are alternately short and long, are more or less bent, and incline upwards : there is 

 only one spine on each varix of the spire ; these varices are prolonged down the snout, and 

 each is armed with about six, long, thin, horizontally straight but forward-bending, front- 

 furrowed, nearly equal spines, between each pair of which in front is a small, fine, procum- 

 bent thorn ; the system of triple varices begins in the course of the second regular whorl : 

 above this point the shell is scored across by from 10 to 16 scars of old mouth-edges, which 

 at the top and bottom of the whorl project into little tubes, hollow, and in front open; 

 the lower row of these tubes is only visible on the first regular whorl, and is gradually 

 buried by the overlap of the suture : between the varices there are no ribs, but only fine, 

 discontinuous undulations, with superficial regular puckerings and lines of growth, which 

 behind the lip exhibit fine crowded laminae. Spirals — there are on the last whorl 3 

 strongish depressed rounded threads corresponding to the 3 largest spines ; corresponding 

 to the smaller spines are smaller threads ; between all of these are one or more fine threads 

 parted by shallow furrows wider than they : besides all these the whole surface is scored 

 with very minute, rather distant, and somewhat irregular threadlets ; the highest thread, 

 connecting the series of largest spiues, forms a strongly angulated shoulder-edge on the 

 upper whorls. Colour ashy white with a rufous tinge, which is strongest on the spines 

 and the point of the snout ; the apex is waxy and subrufous ; the mouth-edge all round 

 is porcellanous white, with one or two chestnut specks on the outer lip, the largest and 

 brightest being just at the top of the mouth. Spire rather low, conical, scalar. Apex 

 consists of 2^ rounded, more or less depressedly globose whorls, of which the earliest is 

 always deformed as if crushed ; the others are smooth, and are parted by an impressed 

 suture ; they terminate abruptly in a patulous and prominent mouth-edge, which has a 

 small sinus at the top. Whorls 7, angularly carinated above, and w T ith a sloping shoulder 

 between the suture and the keel ; the upper whorls are subcylindrically conical, the last 

 tumid and rounded, with a very contracted convex base produced into a very long sub- 

 conical snout, which is fiexuous in front, where an old snout-end stands off like a splinter. 



