224 PYRAMIDELLIDit:. 



Pi/nimis nitidisnimux, Broun, lUust. Conch. (J. R. p. 1.5. 



Chemititziu nitkUssima, Alder, Cat. Moll. Noithumb. and Diirli. j). I!'. 



Although smooth to the naked eye, and represented as 

 such by the earlier writers, the surface of this shell, when 

 not abraded, displays beneath the microscope an exquisitely 

 delicate spiral lineation. 



This graceful little species is very slenderly subulate, 

 almost indeed aciculate, extremely thin, and of an uniform 

 olossy and transparent snow white. Besides the hetero- 

 strophe apical coil, which is narrow and prominent, there 

 are eight volutions, which are most minutely and densely 

 striated throughout in a si)iral direction, are of slow 

 longitudinal increase, and more or less high, the propor- 

 tion of length to breadth in the penult turn being some- 

 times as three to four, sometimes as five to eight. They 

 are moderately, but decidedly, ventricose, and almost 

 equally rounded above and below : the suture that 

 divides them is profound and slanting, or at least 

 moderately oblique. The body, whose axis is imper- 

 forated, is rounded at the base, but its declination is 

 rather quick. The mouth, which occupies a fifth of the 

 entire length, is simply oval, and is not distinguished 

 by any sculpture. The outer lip is acute, simple, and 

 not expanded ; the receding pillar-lip is curved, narrow, 

 and not distinctly reflected. Two lines is the full length 

 of individuals whose basal breadth is but the fifth of that 

 measurement. 



The animal has not yet been observed, nearly all the 

 examples of this rare species having been procured from 

 shelly sand. Dr. Johnston has taken it at Cheswick 

 (Alder), which is almost the only recorded northern loca- 

 lity. Padstow (Rev. W. Molesworth from Dr. Good- 

 all) ; Falmouth, and Cork Harbour (Jeffreys) ; Exmouth 



