PELORID#. 455 
PELORID A, nobis. 
Animalia, quoad testam forme variabilis, nune Naticam, Sigaretum, 
nune Bullam, aut Scalariam simulantia; apertura integra vel 
canali obsoleto ; quoad organa essentialia, summze consensionis ; 
semper proboscide retractili plus minusve longa preedita; pallio 
ad latus columnare canalem brevem efformante. 
Having, agreeably to my method of the classification of the 
British Mollusca, constituted the family of the Peloride,— 
forming, as I think, one of the approaches to the Murices, 
—I have thought that it would be a proper attention to 
naturalists, and justice to myself, to assign the reasons for the 
step I have taken, by giving some account of the singularly 
anomalous genera and species that compose the new family, 
which, though often mentioned,— and some of them have 
even fallen on good ground with respect to natural order,— 
have not received the attention they deserve. My object is 
to give these aberrant animals a more collective form and 
improved arrangement, with respect to their connexion with 
the Muricidal tribes, until better are proposed; for im the 
present age we see that the. highest intelligences im every 
science are scarcely more than ephemeral,—‘ summisque 
negatum stare diu.” I have also supplied fuller descriptions 
of the British species, and hope I have interspersed some 
observations that have hitherto escaped the attention of 
naturalists. 
Several of the species were known to Linnzus and his 
followers, but the older zoologists being comparatively ignorant 
of the animals, have transferred them from genus to genus, 
and the moderns have not yet succeeded in bringing all of 
them to a safe anchorage. I have felt a difficulty in uniting 
these wanderers, almost without a home, as aberrant sections 
of the strict Muricide, though the animals have some of the 
essential organs of that family, and it would be still more 
inconvenient to locate them in any of the existing families of 
the Holostomata. I have considered that the best plan would 
