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



5. Ranella (Lampas) thomcB, d'Orbigny. 



Ranella thomce, d'Orbigny, Moll. Cuba, vol. ii. p. 164, pi. xxiii. fig. 23 (not 24). 

 „ „ Fischer, Coq. Guadaloupe, Revue coloniale, 1858, p. 8, sp. 2.j 



„ Kobelt, Jabrb. malak. Gesellsch., 1876, p. 327, sp. 2. 

 „ cruentata, var., Tryon, Manual, vol. iii. p. 40, pi. xxi. fig. 25. 



February 1873. Kocks off Santa Cruz, Tenerife. 



Habitat. — St Thomas, West Indies (d'Orbigny), Madeira (Watson). 



D'Orbigny (loc. cit.) says, " Cette belle espece a ete pechee par une grande profondeur pres de 

 l'ile Saint-Thomas." His figure has character, but is inaccurately drawn. His type-specimen in the 

 British Museum, though a young and rubbed shell, is unmistakably the same as the Tenerife species 

 of the Challenger. I have dredged it living in Madeira at three different places under 50 fathoms, 

 and there are in the British Museum two unnamed specimens brought by MacGillivray from the 

 Cape Verde Islands which are certainly this species. Have any other specimens been found in the 

 West Indies, or was d'Orbigny 's specimen accidentally introduced in ballast or through fraud of some 

 collector ? He does not speak as if he had got more than one specimen. That is the one preserved 

 in the British Museum, and it was a dead shell. I have quoted Dr Fischer's Guadaloupe list, but I 

 understand him to mean merely that d'Orbigny had got it in the Lesser Antilles. It is very like the 

 Philippine species Ranella rhodostoma, Beck, but that is a hunchier shell, having a lower and less 

 scalar spire, and being shorter and more tumid at the base ; the columella is shorter, and instead of 

 being straight, as in Eanella thomce, is strongly curved to the right ; the anterior canal, in spite 

 of the thicker lip, is shorter and less projecting. The resemblance which at first sight strikes one as 

 strong utterly disappears on closer study and the examination of additional specimens. Mr Tryon 

 says " they do not differ at all from Philippine and Mauritian specimens ; " and this opinion I fear so 

 able a judge as Morch must have to some extent indorsed, but I have failed to find the reference 

 given by v. Martens in the Meeresfauna der Insel Mauritius, &c, Moll., p. 268 (Morch, Mai. Bliitt., 

 1877). But, whoever has held the opinion, it is a mistaken one, as any one capable of recognising 

 differences will not fail to see when once his attention has been directed to the subject. 



6. Ranella (Argobuccimtm) argus (Gmelin). 



Chemnitz, Conch. Cab., vol. iv. p. 75, pi. cxxvii. fig. 1223. 

 Murex argus, Gmelin, Syst. Nat., p. 3547, No. 78. 

 „ „ Dilhvyn, Cat., vol. ii. p. 694, sp. 26. 



Wood, Ind. Test., p. 127, pi. xxv. fig. 27. 

 Ranella argus, Lamarck, Anim. s. vert., vol. vii. p. 151, and (ed. Desh.) vol. ix. p. 543, sp. 4, and 

 Ranella vexillum, p. 553, sp. 20. 

 ,, (Triton) ranelliformis, King, Zool. Journ., 1832, vol. v. p. 347. 

 „ argus, Deshayes, Encycl. method., vers, vol. iii. p. 878, sp. 3, pi. ccccxiv. fig. 3. 

 „ „ Kiener, Iconog., p. 31, sp. 23, pi. viii. fig. 1. 



„ vexillum, Sowerby, Conch. 111. (Ranella), pL i. fig. 3. 

 „ Kingii, d'Orbigny, Amerique ni^rid., vol. v. p. 451. 



„ argus, Reeve, Conch. Icon., vol. ii. pi. iii. fig. 12, and Ranella vexillum, fig. 13. 

 „ „ Krauss, Siidafrik. Moll., p. 113, sp. 1. 



