TEREBRA. 



Plate I. 



Genus TEREBRA, Brugniere. 



Testa elongato-subulata, plerumque acutissime turrita, pro-, 

 fuse colorala, scspissime dense exsculpta, ad basin sintt- 

 ata, anfractibus angustis, numerosissimis, plano-con- 

 vexis. Apertura parva, lubro simplici, nunquam re- 

 fiexo. Operculum parvuui, eorueiuu. 



Shell elongately subulate, mostly very sharply turreted, 

 profusely coloured, and often very elaborately sculp- 

 tured, sinuated at the base, whorls narrow, very 

 numerous, flatly convex. Aperture small, lip simple, 

 never reflected. Operculum small, horny. 



The genus Terebra is one of those well-defined groups 

 of mollusks that cannot easily be confounded with any 

 other. The shell, which has always had great attractions 

 for the collector, is of a long, tapering, needle-like growth, 

 like that of Turritella, but it is conspicuously sinuated at 

 the base, and has a well developed tortuous columella. 

 Whilst Turritella may be likened to a long drawn out 

 Turbo, Terebra may be regarded as a similarly elongated 

 Buccinum, and it has a more highly decorated and a 

 more elaborately sculptured shell. 



The animal of Terebra, as may be gathered from the 

 very restricted proportions of the shell, is limited in size, 

 the head and tentacles are small, and the entire mass, so 

 far as it is exserted from the aperture, rarely extends 

 beyond a tenth of the length of the shell. But although 

 the animal is cumbered with a shell ten times the length 

 of its exserted body, it is not of the same sluggish cha- 

 racter as another turreted genus, Mitra. The shell of 

 Terebra is not of such overbalancing proportions ; it is 

 not so heavily weighted in the middle as in Mitra; it is 

 more symmetrically acuminated ; the weight is chiefly at 

 the base, and the animal obtains a facility of locomotion 

 which enables it to move, and yet sustain its shell in a 

 sloping or comparatively erect position. 



The. species of the genus were ably monographed by- 

 Mr. Hinds, in 1816, but many new ones having been ac- 

 cumulated since that period, the genus was again mono- 

 graphed, at Mr. Cuming's suggestion, by M. Deshayes, in 

 1857-9. M. Deshayes was induced to undertake the in- 

 vestigation of the genus under circumstances hardly 

 favourable to the proper discrimination of the species. 

 Specimens were transmitted to him in Paris, from the 

 Cumingian collection, and his means of comparison with 

 the types of Mr. Hinds' species being necessarily limited, 

 many that were already named were described by him as 

 new, and many were described by him as new, that a more 

 extended series of specimens would have shown to be 

 merely varieties. Out of ninety-three new species added to 



the genus on this occasion by M. Deshayes, I reject forty- 

 one ; though in doing so I find myself in a position of 

 rivalry with a naturalist whose opinions I hold to be, of 

 all conchologists living, the most entitled to respect. I 

 reject also nine of Mr. Hinds' species, as well as some of 

 Dr. Gray's and all of Mr. Carpenter's and M. Lorois'. 



My own means of comparison have been favoured, 

 through the liberality of my colleagues both at home and 

 abroad, in a manner more advantageous. Out of 221 

 species cited by M. Deshayes in his recent memoir, en- 

 titled ' A General Review of the Genus Terebra ' (Pro. 

 Zool. Soc. 1S59, p. 270), I have before me the original 

 types and series of types of 214. They are from the 

 collections of Mr. Cuming, M. Deshayes, Dr. Gray, Mr. 

 Taylor, Mr. Metcalfe, M. Crosse, and M. Lorois. Of two 

 species, T. tessellata, Gray, and T. pulclira, Hinds, the 

 types are in the British Museum. These 214 species I 

 reduce in the manner shown in the following monograph 

 to 149, rejecting 65 as synonyms ; and 1 bring the number 

 up to 155 by describing 6 as new. The 7 species of 

 which I have not been able to obtain specimens are four 

 — T. eburnea, Belclieri, decussata, and subdivisa — described 

 by Dr. Philippi in the ' Zcitschrift,' and three — T. bi- 

 cincta, tuberosa, and amanda — described by Hinds, of 

 which the types are either lost or have been transferred 

 to other species. TJn-illustrated monographs, in which 

 the species of previous authors are cited without an ac- 

 tual comparison of the original types, are valuable aids to 

 research ; but the real test of a critical investigation of 

 species, is to produce a drawing of the object. All the 

 figures of this monograph are drawn from the types them- 

 selves, and no previously described species is quoted as a 

 synonym except as resulting from an actual comparison 

 with the types. 



The Terebra inhabit chiefly the eastern world, though 

 many species of great interest abound on the shores of 

 California and Central America : they are confined to tro- 

 pical and subtropical waters. There is no Terebra so 

 remote from the Equator as the Mediterranean, excepting 

 a small buccinoid species, T. Cosentini, reported on some- 

 what doubtful evidence to have been collected in the Bay 

 of Naples, and one or two even smaller species, collected 

 in about the same latitude of the southern hemisphere, at 



Species 1. (Mus. Cuming.) 

 Tekebka nebvjlosa. Ter. testa acute turrild, aurantio- 

 rufd, albo ampliter tessellato-nebulosd, anfractibus 

 longitudinaliter plicatis, plicis obtusis, approximate, 



June, 1860. 



