MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 229 



In one of the Blake specimens there are two distinct varices ahont a quarter 

 of a whorl apart. The lip and body are pretty well thickened, and the faint 

 reflection of the outer sculpture in the callus within the outer lip is perceptible. 

 There is a presutural band caused by the failure of one or two spiral ridges in 

 that region, leaving a flattish space. There is no umbilicus nor fasciole in any 

 sense. The nucleus is very minute, and does not differ in texture from the 

 succeeding whorls. Our shells agree well with Fischer's figure and that given 

 by Watson, but are evidently older and have a more prominent reflected lip and 

 callous surface around the mouth. They have six whorls, and are 37-38.5 mm. 

 long, and 28.0 wide, of which 31.5 to 32.5 mm. are comprised in the length of 

 the last whorl. None retained the soft parts, but larger specimens were ob- 

 tained of this or the next form by Prof. Verrill. 



I have not seen the Anura Craveni referred to in this connection by Fischer, 

 but the name Anura has long been in use in another sense among Vertcbrata 

 and cannot be properly used at all in the nomenclature of Mollusks. I doubt 

 very much if the genus Anura has any relation to the present form. 



? Section BENTHODOLIUM. 



Columella with a groove behind it, forming, with the callus, a narrow but 

 deep and pervious umbilicus, and distinct siphonal fasciole. 



Oocorys abyssorum (V. & S.?) Dall. 



Benthodollum abyssorum Verrill & Smith, Trans. Conn. Acad., VI. p. 177 (pro parte ? 

 excl. figures), 1884. 



Habitat. U. S. Fish Commission Stations 2400, in 169 fms., mud, in the 

 northern part of the Gulf of Mexico; and 2676, 2677, and 2678, in 407-731 fms., 

 mud and ooze, off the Carolina coast, bottom temperature 38° to 46° F. 



This shell is amazingly like 0. sulcata, except that the spire tends to be a 

 little more elevated, the callus of the lips and the shell in general seem heavier, 

 and behind the columella is a well-marked groove about a millimeter wide 

 bounded externally by a siphonal fasciole, very distinct in the young and 

 partly obscured by callus upon it in the adult. The umbilicus is about the 

 size of the " lead" of a pencil, a bristle will penetrate nearly to the apex of 

 the shell. It is possible that the callus on the columella may in some ex- 

 tremely old specimens extend over and close this umbilicus, but in 0. sulcata 

 there is absolutely nothing of the kind in old or young. I can hardly conceive 

 that a single species can vary to the extent of having such differences as sepa- 

 rate this from the latter. Although in his description of Benthodolium Prof. 

 Verrill says, " not umbilicated," yet in his specific description, speaking of the 

 callus on the columella, he says, " turning outward so as to nearly conceal a 

 narrow umbilical chink." This leads me to think that both species may have 

 been represented in his material, and while he figured one he described the 



