468 PELORID 2A. 
L. perspicua, Linneus. 
L. perspicua, Brit. Moll. in. p. 355, pl.99. f£.8, 9; (animal) pl. P.P.f.1. 
Sigaretus perspicuus, Cuvier et Auct. 
Coriocella perspicua, Blainville. 
Bulla haliotoidea, Mont. et aliorum. 
Animal suboval, covered by a strong coriaceous mantle 
extending on all sides beyond the foot and body, with the 
margins plain and united, except in front, where there is a 
short, but decided branchial fold or canal to admit the water ; 
the inner surface is marked with radiating white lines and 
flaky spots; the outer one is variable in different individuals, 
being often studded with bright orange or citron papillose 
spots, and in other cases with brown or red-brown ones. Under 
the skin, about the centre of the upper surface, is imbedded a 
white, subopake, semispiral, ear-shaped shell, which protects 
the branchial plume and some of the viscera. The head is a 
flat, smooth, very inconspicuous projection, with a subrotund 
orifice beneath, from whence the short retractile proboscis is 
exserted; at a little distance within it are two fleshy lobes 
supporting very thin, pale corneous plates, between which a 
long, flat, spmy tongue springs, which on leaving the palate 
forms three coils on the top of the back of the head, and is 
then continued to the stomach. These remarks, the result of 
various dissections, lead me to observe, that this short pro- 
boscis, though retractile, is not strictly of the usual Muricidal 
form, as in that tribe the tongue is rarely coiled; it is, how- 
ever, thus contorted in our Murex lapillus (Purpura aactorum), 
an indisputable Muricidal animal. But in this creature, the 
most anomalous of our five genera, there are a host of cha- 
racters to prove its close connection with the Canaliferous 
tribes ;—it is as far from Bulla, the conchologist’s usual depo- 
sitary for animals of this sort of aspect, as the poles are from 
each other. Its entire, coriaceous, unreflected mantle has the 
decided branchial canal of many of the Murices, and M. Cuvier 
considers it the equivalent of the muricidal shell; that great 
naturalist, in the anatomy of this animal, thus sums up :—“ En 
un mot, pour faire du Sigaret un Buccin, il suffirait que les 
tours de sa coquille moins inégaux, se prolongeassent en une 
