REPORT ON THE GASTEROPODA. 185 



Habitat. — Reunion (Deshayes), Indian Ocean, Nicobars, Ceylon, Malay Peninsula 

 (v. Martens), Philippines (Adams), New Ireland (Reeve). 



This species is put by Adams in his sub-genus Hcbra, and in the British Museum in the sub- 

 genus Utiza ; but it can belong to neither, the outer lip being strongly variced and internally lirate. 

 I have thought it best, however, that where the Messrs Adams put this and Nassa echinata, they 

 should be left if for nothing else than as a witness to the value of these subdivisions. 



20. Nassa (Aciculina) babylonica, Watson (PL XI. fig. 8). 



Nassa (Aciculina) babylonica, Watson, Prelim. Report, pt. 13, Journ. Linn. Soc. Lond., vol. xvi. 



p. 366, sp. 4. 



Station 210. January 25, 1875. Lat. 9° 26' N., long. 123° 45' E. Philippines. 

 375 fathoms. Blue mud. Bottom temperature 54 0, 1. 



Shell. — Small, thin, porcellanous, high and narrow, scalar, ribbed, with a sharp 

 tubercle at the top of each rib, a small blunt apex, and a very short stumpy base. 

 Sculpture: Longitudinals — there are rounded, rather high, narrow, straight, sparsely-set 

 ribs, almost mucronate at the top of the whorls and tubercled on the base ; the lines 

 of growth are fine, close, and hair-like. Spirals — below the narrow, flat, horizontal 

 shoulder are two or three threads, which rise into sharp points in crossing the ribs ; in 

 the middle of the whorls there are some faint traces of raised threads; those on the base 

 are sharper, and rise into tubercles in crossing the ribs ; all these, as well as the ribs, die 

 out at the extreme point of the base ; beyond this the pillar is defined by a strong broad 

 furrow, and the short twisted pillar is scored with rounded threads. Colour porcellanous 

 white. Spire high, scalar, conical. Apex a blunt little cone of 3^ depressed rounded 

 whorls, out of which the minute tip just rises into view ; the last of these embryonic 

 whorls is keeled. Whorls 9^, with a flat horizontal shoulder, from which each whorl 

 in turn rises like a cylindrical tower ; at the outer edge of the shoulder the whorls are 

 sharply angled ; they are all very short ; and the last, which is small, has a very truncate, 

 rounded base. Suture marginated and very flexuous in consequence of the tubercles on 

 the margin. Mouth round, patulous, bluntly pointed above, prolonged across the front 

 of the very short pillar into a little round hole of a canal. Outer lip well arched, retiring > 

 with a rounded edge, and thickened both outside and in ; on the internal varix there are 

 in front a few small blunt tubercles ; round the canal the edge is thickened, reverted, 

 and emarginate. Inner lip straight across the body, concave in the middle, and straight 

 on the very short pillar : the labial pad is rather narrow, thick, with a raised and rounded 

 edge ; it has a biggish tubercle near the top, and 3 or 4 others, smaller, on the body and 

 pillar, the point of which is twisted and patulous, but not flanged. Operculum very small, 

 triangular or claw-shaped, being long and narrow ; the edges are not serrated. H. 0'45 in. 

 B. 0-23. Penultimate whorl, height O'l. Mouth, height 0-16, breadth O'll. 



(ZOOL. CHALL. EXP. — PART XLII. — 1885.) Tt 24 



