INTRODUCTION. 9 



lip and then the other is more or less deeply 

 toothed, and at maturity both perhaps are angular 

 and flat. The spire is then depressed, or rather 

 retuso-umbilicate ; and the shells, having under- 

 gone as great a variety of changes in the painting 

 as in the form, are at length recognised legitimate 

 Cypraeae. Many Strombi have at first a great si- 

 milarity to the genus Conus ; the winged or lobed 

 lip is wanting ; the massy spines are merely tuber- 

 cles ; the body of the shell, instead of being beset 

 with them on all sides, is but slightly undulated, and 

 the sutures are papillary or crenate. Sometimes, 

 though the body and the spire be quite as large as 

 in, an adult specimen, there is not the slightest 

 appearance of a tendency to lobes in the outer 

 lip, and even the canal has the direction rather of 

 a Buccinum or Murex than of a Strombus : in such 

 a case it is extremely difficult, without previoas 

 information, to detect the specific character. The 

 Murices have their spines and foliations formed 

 regularly as the whorls increase, and it does not 

 seem probable that they receive any fiirther alte- 

 ration after their first construction. The spines. 



