Fusus. 375 



curved. Length, two and a half inches; breadth, one and one fourth 

 inclics ; divergence, fifty degrees 



From the Bank Fisheries. Taken from codfish. Several good 

 specimens of various ages arc now before me, for most of wliich I 

 am indebted to the kindness of Colonel Totten. St. Anne (^Bell) ; 

 fossil, Montreal (Daivson). 



This shell is undcscribed, unless it be the much debated and 

 equivocal Murex despcctus of Linnaeus, about which British writers 

 seem to have been so much puzzled. It differs from the early state 

 of the Fusus antiquus of Linnasus, the F. dcspectus of most British 

 conchologists, in the more rounded form of the whorls, and in being 

 destitute of the network formed by the close revolving and longitu- 

 dinal striffi, and it would evidently never assume the appearance of 

 a mature F. antiquus. 



The oidy figures I have seen at all resembling this are figure 

 1295 of Martini, which he regards as a variety of Murex antiquus, 

 as indeed he does the M. despectus of Linneeus also ; and the 

 figure of Donovan in his " British Shells," Vol. V. pi. 180, under 

 the name of Murex despectus. I have very little doubt that it 

 is the genuine M. despectus of Linnaeus ; but as another shell is 

 now universally received under that name, it seems the most ju- 

 dicious way to apply a new name to this, with the above explana- 

 tion. 



This shell probably never becomes three inches in length. It is 

 inelegant and coarse, in general smooth and somewhat shining, 

 though seeming to be made up of small, plane surfaces, rather than 

 curved ones. The elevated lines are broad, and smoothly rounded, 

 of a darker color than the rest of the shell, and give it an appear- 

 ance as though it might have been turned in a lathe, but left in an 

 unfinished state. In general outline it very strongly resembles the 

 fossil F. contrarius of the English crag formation. 



Fusus decemcostatus. 



Fig. 202. 



Shell oval, turreted, ash colored, with ten elevated, rounded, horn colored ribs 

 on the lower whorl, and two on the upper ones. 



Fusus decemcostatus, Say, Jonrn. Acad. Nat. Sc. v. 214. — GoULn, Inv. 1st cd. 287, fif^. 



202. — De Kay, N. Y. Moll. 14.5, pi. 9, fig. 196. —Phil. Abbild. pi. 1, fig. 12. — 



Stimpson, Check Lists, 6. 

 Fasus carinatus, Kiener, Species (Fusus), pi. 19, fig. 1. 



