TURRITELLA. 317 



must be eight or ten inches in length. Diameter of aperture about 

 one fourth of an inch. It is very seklom that one specimen is found 

 by itself ; numbers are usually grouped and intertwined with each 

 other. 



A very fine group was hooked up by a friend in New Bedford 

 Plarbor, containing not less than fifty individuals, inseparably inter- 

 twined. The living animals then occupied them. Professor Adams 

 has also found small ones in the same region. Several specimens 

 of Cumingia telUnoldes were entangled within the folds, and in one 

 of the tubes was a Crepidula plana. In the case of this shell we 

 liave the paradox of the apex or commencement of the shell being 

 situated beneath the base. 



Ociiiis TURRITELLA, Lamarck. 1799. 



Shell turreted, elongated, spirally grooved, pointed ; aperture 

 entire, rounded; lips disjoined posteriorly ; operculum horny. 



Turritella erosa. 



Shell elongate-turreted, pale brown, composed of about ten smooth, flattish 

 whorls, sloping above to the suture, and grooved with from three to five obtuse, 

 revolving furrows. 



Turritella erosa, Couthotty, Best. Journ. Nat. Hist. ii. 103, pi. 3, fig. 1. — Gould, Inv. 

 1st ed. 267. — Stimpson, Check Lists, 5. — De Kay, N. Y. Moll. 113, pi. 6, fig. 122. 



Shell elongated-conical, turreted, pale horn colored, with a light 

 reddish-brown epidermis ; whorls about ten, flattish, smooth, ^. ^^ 

 sloping towards the suture, so that each whorl seems a little 

 shelving over the succeeding one, and furrowed with from 

 three to five abrupt, revolving grooves, nearly as wide as the 

 spaces between them. From five on the largest whorl, the 

 number goes on diminishing above ; the whorls at the apex 

 are usually broken off, and much of the summit is a good 

 deal eroded. Lines of growth are quite conspicuous in the grooves, 

 but scarcely perceptible elsewdiere ; aperture nearly circular ; lip 

 sharp, meeting the prolonged pillar, so as to produce a partial an- 

 gle ; operculum horny, multi-spiral. Length four fifths of an inch ; 

 breadth, three tenths of an inch. 



Found in the stomachs of fishes caught in Massachusetts Bay. 

 It is usually found either incomplete, or much defaced and broken. 



T. erosa. 



