348 VELUTINIDiE. 



Vehitina rupkolu, Conrad, Journ. Acad. Nat. Sc. I'liilatloliili. vol. vi. p. 2<J(), 

 pi. ll,f. 17, 18. 

 „ striata, Macgilliv. Moll. Aberd. p. IGO. 



„ Ilalioioides, Moller, Moll. Groenl. p. 1 0. — ^Iiddend. Malacoz. Rossic. 

 pt. 2, p. 104. 

 Gulcriculim lavi<j(itunu Brown, Illiist. Conch. G. B. p. 23, pi. 19, f. 3.5, 38. 



This tliin and semitraiisparent shell has a somewhat 

 obliquely romuled-ovate figure, which in the adult is 

 broader than it is long- ; it is of an uniform pinkish flesh 

 colour, never banded (as in zonata), and covered in living 

 examples with a rather thicki.sh membranaceous yellowish 

 brown epidermis, which is often raised in thin equidistant 

 spiral ridges where it passes over the numerous, but not 

 crowded, very fine, and little elevated encircling costellar 

 lines, that, although abraded in worn examples, are always 

 more or less distinctly present in well preserved individuals. 

 The volutional increase is of extraordinary rapidity, since 

 the body occupies nearly the entire dorsal area. The 

 spire, composed as it is of only two turns and a half, 

 is not elevated, when the gyration is compact and j)er- 

 fectly regular, above the level of the outer lip ; but in the 

 more aged specimens (whose coils are more loosely and 

 obliquely disposed) has some little prominence ; it is only 

 sublateral, as the shell is not so greatly produced towards 

 the lip as in the genus Othia. The suture is peculiarly 

 distinct, and often sinks in broadly and profoundly above 

 the body, into whose crown the spire seems oftentimes 

 as though it had been forcibly pressed and had dravi^n in 

 likewise the margin of the final volution. The whorls, 

 whose scarcely raised apex is fine and very small, are 

 really tumid ; yet when the shell rests on its aperture, it 

 only appears to be an irregular hemisphere. The basal 

 declination of the body is well rounded, and symmetrically 

 gradual. The capacious aperture is almost orlticular, and 



