TRUNCATELLA. 383 
forming an angle of 25°. The eyes are large and black, and 
have white prominent pupils, which visibly dilate and contract. 
I have never observed such in any mollusk, though similar 
ones may have escaped notice: they are placed a little nearer 
to the base than the middle of their lower half, not on pedicles, 
but quite flat on the centre of subsemicircular expansions of 
the outer sides of the tentacula, with an external tendency. 
Foot thick, steep, oval, very little extended, and on the march 
maintaining posteally and anteally the oval contour, with a 
vermicular motion, like an advance of one half to the other ; 
this action gives an apparent crease, simulating an incised 
transverse line, but on the step being completed, the foot 
becomes entire. It carries very posteally, on a plain upper 
lobe, without an appendage of any sort, a narrow, irregularly 
oval, light yellow corneous operculum, rounded at the outer 
margin and basally, straighter next the columellar side, and 
contracted at the upper angle; the nucleus of the spire is at 
the base, with a single turn, which, though indistinct, is in 
certain lights, with good glasses, quite visible; its surface is 
coarse and corrugated, and marked with rough, somewhat 
oblique, not equidistant striz or ridges. The rostrum is me- 
dially longitudinally finely grooved, which character extends 
through the neck as far as can be seen, probably as a guide- 
channel to the branchial leaf. The neck, with this exception, 
is plam. The animal is not shy, but does not creep with 
much rapidity ; its progression is a modification of the littori- 
nidan vermicular character. 
That Truncatella is a Littormidan genus admits of no doubt ; 
the very paucispiral operculum, pair of jaws, and single bran- 
chial plume sufficiently attest this determination ; its position 
is of course closely connected with Rissoa. 
T. rrrrorea, Delle Chiaje. 
T. littorina, Philippi, Moll. Siciliz. 
Rissoa et Assiminia littorea, nonnull. 
R. littorea, Brit. Moll. iti. p. 132, pl. 81. f.6, 7; (animal) pl. M.M. 
f. 3a, 3b, and iv. p. 265 (as Assiminia). 
Animal inhabiting a minute pale yellow shell, not jth of 
