468 AURICULIDiE. 



Melampus hidentatiis, Say, Journ. Acad. Nat. Sc. Pliila. ii. 245 (1822) , Binnet's ed. 84. — 

 EusSELL, Journ. Essex Co. Nat. Hist. Soc. i. part 2, 67 (18.39). — Pfeiffer, Mon. 

 Auric. Viv. 45 (excl. Mel. bonmlis). — W. G. Binney, Terr. Moll. iv. 156, pi. 75, 

 fig. 2.3; Smitli last. L. and Fr. W. Shells, ii. 10, figs. 11, 12 (1865). 



Melampus hipUcatus, Pfeiffer, Mon. Auric. Viv. 21 ; Br. Mus. 14. 



Melampus Jwiinel, Pfeiffer, Mon. Auric. Viv. 25 ; Brit. Mus. Cat 18. 



Auricula cornea, Deshayes, Ency. Meth. ii. 90 (1830) ; in Lam. 2d cd. viii. 339, 3d cd 

 iii. 390 (1839). 



Auricula hidentata, Gould, Inv. Mass 197, fig. 131 (1841). — De Kay, N Y Moll 57, 

 t. 5, figs. 92, 1, 2, 3 (1843). — Kuster, Chemn. 2d ed. Auric, tl, pi. 6, figs. 7-11. 



Auricula Jauniei, RIittre, Kev. Zool. (Mars, 1841), 66. 



Auricula biplirula, Deshayes, Encyc. Mcth. ii. 91. 



Melampus bidentatus, var. linealus, Say, p. 46 of ed. Binney. 



Mehimpun bidentatiis, ,*}, Pfeiffer, Mon. Auric. 46. — Var a. De Kay, 1. c. 



Not Auricula hidens, PoTiEZ et Michaud, Gal. 201, pi. 20, figs. 9, 10. 



Shell ovate-conical, broadest at about the upper third, where 

 there is a faint angle, thin, translucent, of a brownish horn color, 

 smooth and shining, often becoming eroded, wrinkled 

 lengthwise, with occasional broken revolving lines, 

 very minute ; whorls five or six, the lower one three 

 fourths the length of the shell, the others, separated 

 by a distinct suture, and flattened, form a short, 

 tdentatus. \)\xx\\i spirc ; aperture long and narrow, broadest be- 

 low ; outer lip thin and sharp, the posterior third suddenly bending 

 inwards joins the body of the shell by a very acute angle ; the in- 

 ner lip, usually covered with enamel, has two folds upon it, a trans- 

 verse one below the middle, and another formed by the outer lip as 

 it rises and turns within the shell ; this portion is usually Avhite ; 

 within the outer lip are occasionally to be found from one to four 

 elevated, white, revolving ridges, not reaching the edge of the lip. 

 Length, half an inch ; breadth, three tenths of an inch ; divergence, 

 sixty-eight degrees. 



From New England to Texas. Inhabits marshes that are occa- 

 sionally overflowed by the tide, and never far below high-water 

 mark. They frequently crawl up the stems of grasses at the mar- 

 gins of inlets, apparently to escape the rising tide. In October, 

 1839, I observed great numbers of them at Oak Island, a small, 

 wooded upland spot in Chelsea surrounded by salt marsh. They 

 were burying themselves under the leaves, and in the loose earth at 

 the base of rotten stumps. This spot is now never overflowed by 

 the tide. 



The animal is reddish-brown above, paler beneath, foot about the 

 length and breadth of the shell, broad before, and bluntly pointed 

 behind, the margins somewhat scalloped, or undulated, and divided 



