VELUTINA. 471 
at the external bases. The foot is rather long and wide, and 
when extended, truncate anteriorly, with inconsiderable au- 
ricles, which in full action disappear; it then tapers to a 
blunt terminus. The branchial apparatus consists of two 
plumes, lying on the left side of the neck; the one is a pale 
brown riband of numerous strong striz of vessels, the other is 
a small, dark, striated leaf, with an apparent division in the 
centre, caused by the arterial vessel; it is placed close under 
the larger mass. The heart and auricle are at the base of 
the larger leaf; perhaps the greater range may be the mucous 
fillets common to most or all the Muricide; but, from the 
position of the heart, I think both leaves are branchial. The 
cesophagus is extremely short; it almost immediately opens 
into a large oval stomach that is always filled with pulp. 
The cesophageal cordon consists of two oval yellow ganglia on 
each side, and one smaller, a little posterior to the others. 
The verge is yellow, not long, and is a miniature of that 
organ in Murex undatus, except that it is rather more pointed, 
and has the orifice at the point instead of a little below it, as 
in that species. 
The animal inhabits, at Exmouth, the deepest waters of the 
coralline zone. This is the last genus which, in respect of the 
shell and animal, cannot be placed im a simple natural series, 
but must fall therem by a branch. It is not so aberrant as 
Lamellaria, as here the coriaceous mantle has vanished, and 
the auriform shell protecting the viscera and branchiz has 
become external; nevertheless, by its thick epidermal coat it 
appears to supply the place of the thick external mantle of 
Lamellaria. Its place m the natural order is conspicuously 
marked out by the retractile proboscis as a sequence to the 
last genus, and it is assigned to the present family as a striking 
point of transition to the Canalifera. 
V. rtexriis, Montagu. 
V. flevilis, Brit. Moll. iii. p. 350, pl. 99. f. 6,7 ; (animal) pl. O.O. f. 6. 
This is a Scottish and Hebridean species: it appears to be- 
long to this genus. For some account of the animal I refer 
to the ‘ British Mollusca,’ vol. 1. p. 350. 
