TOXIFERA. 245 



We have been obliged to change the name of this 

 genus, as Orhis is already in use as a synonym of Pla- 

 norbis, and is also employed for a genus of Fishes, A 

 living example has been recorded by M. Philippi as 

 existing in the Mediterranean ; the other species are 

 Eocine fossils from Alabama in America. 



Sub-order TOXIFERA. 



Animal provided with a distinct, retractile proboscis, 

 which, in the contracted state, forms a short, conical, 

 annulated protuberance at the bottom of a tubular exten- 

 sion of the veil between the tentacles. Instead of the 

 usual lingual band, covered with short, transparent teeth, 

 as in the tribes of Proboscidifera and Rostrifera, the pro- 

 boscis is furnished with a fleshy tube having a bundle of 

 subulate, barbed teeth at the end. This tube is extended 

 below, at right angles to the cavity, into a conical prolong- 

 ation, which is furnished with two series of similar, red, 

 barbed, subulate teeth, directed from the aperture of the 

 proboscis towards the tip of the tube. These teeth are 

 each separately implanted in the fleshy tube; those 

 nearest the mouth are placed in two, rather irregular, 

 parallel rows, but those nearest the tip are more crowded, 

 the lines gradually diverging from each other. 



Adanson states that the tubular expansion of the veil 

 serves as an oral sucker to attach the animal to its prey, 

 the armed tube acting, meanwhile, as a powerful boring 

 instrument. In most species it is simple at the edge, 

 but in others, as in Nubecula tulipa, it is fringed with 

 cylindrical beards, and is capable of considerable expan- 

 sion when the animal is alive. 



