FAMILY TURBINIDiE MELANIA. 



89 



GENUS MELANIA. Lamarck. 



Animal witli a proboscis-like rostrum, semicylindrical, slightly notched in front; tentacles 

 filiform ; foot oval and very large ; mantle festooned in front and on the left. Shell turreted, 

 rather thick, and covered with an epidermis. Aperture acute, oblong, entire, effuse at 

 the base. Lip simple, acute, prominent near the base, and rather abruptly retracted at 

 its junction with the base of the columella, and not united above to the pillar-lip. Colu- 

 mella smooth, incurved. No umbilicus. Opercle corneous, spiral. 



Obs. These animals are most numerous in Asia and America. In Europe they are only 

 found in a fossil state. In this country, more than one hundred species have been described, 

 almost exclusively from the Western and Southern States. In the first edition of Lamarck, 

 (Animaux sans vertebres), among the sixteen living species described, only one is attributed 

 to North-America. The chief laborers in this genus are Messrs. Say, Conrad, and more 

 especially Mr. Lea, who alone has added more than fifty species, all of which are beautifully 

 figured in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. As the species are very 

 numerous, Mr. Lea has arranged them under nine divisions, according as they are smooth, 

 plicate, carinate, sulcate, striate, tuberculate, granulate, cancellate or rugose. 



Melania depygis. 



PLATE VII. FIG. 135. A. B. VariETV. 



(STATE COLLECTION.) 



M. depygis. 

 M. id. 



Say, Des. terr. & fluv. shells, p. 19 ; Am. Conch, pi, 8, figs. 4, 5. 

 Adams, American Jour. Science, Vol. 40, p. 3GG. 



Description. Shell oblong, conic-ovate, not remarkably thickened. Spire longer than the 

 aperture, often much eroded, with a broad revolving band near the suture, occupying more 

 than half the surface. Whorls about five, hardly rounded, and in the adult nearly flat. 

 Suture moderately impressed. Aperture ovate-acute above, moderately dilated. Lip not 

 projecting near the base, nor arched near its junction : base regularly rounded. 



Color. Body-whorl rufous or yellowish, with two equidistant revolving rufous lines, of 

 which the upper is broadest. 



Length, 0-5-0-9; of aperture, O'S-O^. 

 Var. a. Dark brown bands obsolete. 

 Var. b. Large, with coarse folds on the body-whorl. 



I have received this species from the Brimstone springs west of Geneva, and it doubtless 

 occurs in various other parts of the State. The whorls of these are of a dark horn-color, 

 and the sutures whitish, often entirely covered with a calcareous coating. Prof. Adams 

 detected it in Lake Champlain, and remarks that it is the only species yet observed in the 

 States east of the Hudson river. 



Fauna — Part 6. 12 



