12 INTRODUCTION. 
varieties from New Guinea connect it with the N. marginulata, 
Reeve, and the N. margaritifera, D’k’r. ; the two shells figured in 
Kiener, at pl. 14, f. 49, as varieties of N. crenulata, Lam., and 
Smith, P. Z. S., 1879, as N. sequijorensis, A. Ad., var., p. 181, 
pl. 20, f. 45, from Japan, are intermediate forms connecting the 
smooth with the cancellated shells. 
The shell named and described in Philippi’s Abbi/dungen under 
the title of Nassa albescens may be a variety of at least six others. 
These albinos are by no means uncommon. A shell before 
me is a white variety, with a purple apex, of the N. sordida, 
A. Ad., from Borneo; a second slightly banded is from the Philippines ; 
another is nearly allied to the N. hispida, A. Ad.; a third is a white 
variety, with a dark tip, of the granular form of the N. nodicinta, 
A. Ad. ; a fourth resembles the shell figured in Reeve’s Conchologia 
Iconica as the N. Isabellei, D’Orb, but is white ; a fifth was sent me 
by a gentleman who gathered it on the shores of the Red Sea—it is 
white with a rufous apex; and lastly, Reeve has figured another 
shell at pl. 15, f. 100, as the N. albescens, Phil. What the 
N. bicolor, Hombr. and Jaq., is, I do not know ; but it is quoted as a 
synonyme of Philippi’s shell. Some of my white shells are with- 
out a coloured apex. A variety with square, flat spaces covering 
the shell, is in one of my trays. Varieties of other shells are often 
coloured at the apex; N. picta, rufula, mucronata, etc., are examples, 
and several of these albinos have faint coloured transverse bands. 
I have two white varieties of the N. splendidula, D'k’r. 
In the case of N. lentiginosa, A. Ad., following the line from 
the broad to the narrow shells, we find the varieties passing 
through the narrow forms of the N. velata, Gould, into the N. polita 
and inseulpta, Marr., this latter shell being so like a Terebra that the 
late H. Adams had to be consulted to decide the question with re- 
gard to which genus (Nassa or Terebra) it should be referred. 
Nassa micans, A. Ad., Reeve, pl. 21, f. 140, is the smooth 
form of the N. planicostata, A. Ad. At plate 12, f. 76, is figured 
a variety of the last-named shell, with only very close faint 
lines upon it, and the second figure, pl. 14, f. 94, represents it in 
its costate and sulcate forms. Another and somewhat shorter and 
