VOLUTA. 83 



Voluta of Linnaeus, Lamarck, and other old authors, com- 

 prised many species of other genera, but in restricting it more 

 and more, until the advanced school of conchologists have left 

 to it but a couple of species, the citation of Linnaeus as its author 

 has generally been retained. Mr. H. Crosse has, however, 

 eliminated from the genus thus restricted, the V. musica, which 

 is the first actual Voluta in Linnneus' list (after a crowd of 

 Auriculai, Columbell;Te,Marginellte, Mitrids). In compensation, 

 he has reduced the numerous genera of H. and A. Adams, and 

 Gray, to sections, retaining Voluta in something like the same 

 comprehensive sense as that in which we use Helix, Fissurella, 

 Pleurotoma and other old generic names. These " sections "are 

 rather circumscribed geographically, yet the range of the entire 

 genus is very great, including the Indian Ocean, Japan, Alaska, 

 Australia, Eastern Polynesia, Atlantic coasts of Southern South 

 America, to West Indies, Southern Africa, etc. No species 

 exists in the seas of Europe, although they were numerous 

 during the tertiary epoch ; V. abyssicola, an African species, is 

 the sole surviving representative of the group to which most of 

 these small tertiarj^ species belonged. Australia is the metropolis 

 of the Volutes, and, as M. Crosse remarks, a triangle the res- 

 pective points of which shall include Ceylon, Japan and New 

 Zealand will cover the habitats of about 80 per cent, of the 

 species. 



Sect. 1. Voluta {tiiiiicaU, Gray. 



Longitudinally plicate, plicre becoming prominent on the 

 shoulder, columella with foul- olf five principal plaits, and several 

 smaller ones. Operculum (of V. musica) fusoid, narrowly 

 elongated, with terminal nucleus. 



y. MUSICA, Linn. PL 24, figs. 29-34, 38. 



Color generally pale yellowish or brownish, punctate, strigate 

 and clouded with chestnut and other colors, with three revolving, 

 more or less distinct bands of distant, parallel, fuscous lines, 

 crossed by strigations ; these bands are bordered by a row of 

 dark spots, and the space between these rows is finely punctate 

 with chestnut ; outer lip dark chocolate, or chestnut-spotted. 



Length, 2-4 inches. 



West Indies. 



