BUCCINUM. 403 



eight. They may be variously rounded, and are very 

 rarely flattened ; they are always spirally and minutely 

 striated, and usually more or less conspicuously spirally 

 grooved as well ; in the most typical examples, all the 

 whorls exhibit tranverse undulations, few or many, weak 

 or strong, always oblique and obtuse, crossing one half 

 or two-thirds of the sutural side of the body-whorl, and 

 the whole breadth of the upper whorls ; in other forms 

 these become entirely obsolete on the body-whorl, and 

 evanescent on the spire. The aperture of the shell pre- 

 sents constant characters. It occupies two-thirds of the 

 length of the body-whorl, its upper angle uniting with 

 the latter just below the greatest tumidity of the body. 

 It is always ovate and ample ; its outer lip thickened, 

 sinuated, and sub-reflexed above, projecting and patulous 

 below, where it retires and becomes sinuated and some- 

 what reflected to form the very short and wide canal. 

 The pillar lip is concave and twice sinuated and obliquely 

 contorted on the columella, over which it forms a polished 

 expansion ; at its extremity it is truncated, with a slight 

 obliquity to form the inner w^all of the siphon al canal ; 

 dorsally, the convexity of its upper sinuation is con- 

 tinued as a strong, rounded, oblique fold, to the truncated 

 notch of the canal. The surface of the shell is usually 

 invested with an epidermis, often soft and pilose, some- 

 times glabrous and membranous, less frequently altogether 

 wanting. Its colour varies, being white, or yellowish, or 

 brownish, without bands, or of the same ground-colours, 

 with chestnut spiral bands, or wavy blotches. A variety 

 occurs with chestnut bands, alternating with broad white 

 intermediate spaces. The interior of the mouth also 

 varies from pure white to yellow, and various degrees 

 of intensity of purple. 



