MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 185 



It is entirely different from N. acuta Say, which has been referred to it by 

 Tryon. N. acuta extends on the southern coast from South Carolina to Texas, 

 and I have received it from Barbados; it appears to be rare everywhere. 



Nassa consensa Ravenel. 

 Nassa consensa Ravenel, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phil., 1861, p. 43. 



Habitat. Off Charlotte Harbor, W. Florida, twenty miles, in 13 fms. (Blake). 

 Off the coast from Florida to North Carolina living at moderate depths, 8-49 

 fms., and dead in 8-150 fms. (U. S. Fish Commission). 



This species, as identified by Prof. Verrill, seems to me well defined and 

 worthy of acceptation. Though its general form is very much the same as 

 that of ambigua, its spiral sculpture is of an entirely different character ; and 

 its color painting, though variable in both species, has a distinctive character 

 for each of them. 



Nassa Hotessieri Orbignt. 



Nassa Hotessieri Orbigny, Moll. Cuba, II. p. 142, 1845. 



Nassa Hotessieriana Orbigny, op. cit., Atlas, pi. xxi. figs. 40-42. 



Nassa Hotessieri Orbigny, Voy. dans l'Am. Mer. Moll., 1840. 



Habitat. Gulf of Mexico, Station 36, in 84 fms.; off Sombrero, 54-72 fms.; 

 off Sand Key, 80 fms. ; Station 2, in 805 fms. ; U. S. Fish Commission Station 

 2596, seventeen miles E. S. E. from Cape Hatteras, N. C, in 49 fms.; and 

 Station 2646, off Cape Florida, in 85 fms., gray sand. None of the specimens 

 were living, though nearly all were perfectly fresh. 



The specimen figured by Orbigny was quite young. The species grows even 

 larger than N. ambigua, and is perfectly distinguishable from it, the chief 

 and most obvious characters being the flattened whorls turrited by the appli- 

 cation of the suture below a peripheral band, the close and uniform transverse 

 riblets prickly nodulated by the revolving sculpture, which is weak or absent 

 between the riblets, and the clean-cut channel behind the siphonal fasciole 

 margined in front by a small sharp keel. 



On the base of large specimens the spiral sculpture shows as grooves deep 

 on one side and running out on the other, like those on a flat file, instead of the 

 rounded threads characteristic of ambigua. In some specimens the transverse 

 riblets become obsolete or irregular on the last whorl. The aperture is like 

 that of ambigua. 



Nassa scissurata Dall. 



Shell short, conical, glistening, white clouded with light brown or buff; whorls 

 stout, well rounded; nucleus of two translucent turns, smooth or transversely 

 slightly wrinkled; remainder comprising five or six turns separated by a deep 



