CONUS. 169 
safe criterion for specific distinction. The identification must 
be confined to the species of the ‘Museum Ulrice,’ since the 
Cone preserved in the box thus marked in the Linnean collec- 
tion (where monachus is not present) is a large worn individual 
of the C. Mediterraneus of authors, and being correctly de- 
scribed was doubtlessly intended by the ‘Systema.’ Neverthe- 
less, since that shell is not hinted at in the synonymy, and the 
description was utterly inadequate, it can have no claim to the 
Linnean appellation: it has not the striated spire of the mo- 
nachus of the ‘Museum Ulrice.’ 
Cows niiwii1ws. 
“Ta Minime” of Argenville, the sole figure referred to, is 
manifestly the Conus figulinus, a shell which does not even an- 
swer to the single line of description in the ‘ Systema,’ far less 
to the details of the ‘Museum Ulrice.’ The features enume- 
rated in that work are not sufficient to distinguish a member of 
so large a genus as Conus; hence any supposed determination 
of the species should be modified by a “probably” appended. 
It is to be regretted that Linneus did not himself possess this 
species, since his specimen might have cleared up the obscurity. 
In modern works we find a Conus minimus (Reeve, Conch. 
Icon. vol. i. Con. f. 143) supposed by Hwass to be identical, 
but upon what grounds I cannot understand. Its shape is 
conic rather than “ ovata,’ its spire is coronated, a feature 
which, although not regarded by our author as of essential im- 
portance, was always specified by him when present; the series 
of spiral lines, instead of exceeding thirty (“ plus 30 ex lineis 
fuscis”) (M. U.) rarely even reach to that number, more fre- 
quently, indeed, are only twenty: the veritable colouring, 
moreover, would be ill expressed by “glauco sordidoque nubi- 
lata” “ spira-maculis fuscis magnis transversis.” In nearly all 
these particulars the Conus magus approaches far nearer to the 
description, and that shell is suggested by the synonymy added 
in the copy that belonged to the younger Linné (Knorr, 3, t. 
27, f.2: 5,t. 25, f.5. The first of these references has been 
quoted by Born in the synonymy of his ideal of the Linnean 
Z 
