Boone, MolliAsca, Cruises of "Ara" and "Alva" 327 



Family: SOLENIDAE 



Genus: CULTELLUS Schumacher 



Cultellus scalprum (Gould) 



Plate 140 



Type : This was obtained at Singapore and is deposited in the 

 Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. 



Distribution: Singapore (Gould); Gulf of Siam (Morlet, 

 Lynge) ; Straits of Malacca, Poulo Penang, Salang, Mergui Archi- 

 pelago, Java (Lynge) ; Sourabaya, Java (Boone). 



Material examined: Seven specimens, in excellent series, 

 from Sourabaya, Java, October 28, 1931. 



Technical description : The seven specimens taken by the 

 "Alva" at Sourabaya are identical with the type obtained at Singa- 

 pore, except that several of the present series are larger than the 

 type. 



The shell is fragile, thin, semitranslucent, the inner surface 

 being delicately opalescent. The epidermis is light greenish yel- 

 low. The external surface is marked with fine lines of growth and 

 radiating striae transversely elongate and widening posteriorly. 

 The interior is widely gaping, bluish white. The shell has the 

 dorsal and ventral margins somewhat rectilinear with the poste- 

 rior end widely rounded, the beaks at the anterior fifth ; the ante- 

 rior end narrowed, rounded obliquely toward the sloping dorsal 

 margin so that the tip is above the middle. The posterior umbonal 

 slope is moderately tumid. The hinge (pi. 140) consists of two 

 contiguous, narrow, compressed, divaricate teeth in the right 

 valve and in the left valve a recurved, subulate tooth which inter- 

 fits between those of the opposed valve and a smaller tooth imme- 

 diately anterior to this. The anterior hinge margin is reinforced 

 by an oblique ridge ; the posterior hinge margin simulates a long, 

 linear tooth, thicker on the right than on the left valve. 



Measurements: Long diameter 72 millimeters, transverse 

 (median) diameter 24 millimeters. 



References: Solen scalprum, Gould, A. A., Proc. Boston Sec. 

 Nat. Hist, 1850, vol. Ill, p. 214, sp. 74; in Wilkes, C., U. S. 



