MARGINELLA. .503 



Erato Icevis, Gray, Sowerljy's Conch. Illust. Catalog. Cyp. p. 1 5, f. 57. — Reeve, 

 Conch. System, vol. ii. pi. 285, f. 3. 

 „ CyprcEola, Philippi, Moll. Sicil. vol. i. p. 233. 

 Columbella Itevis, Brown, Illust. Conch. G. B. p. 4, pi. 8, f. 15. 

 Marginella „ Philippi, Moll. Sicil. vol. ii. p. 197. — Desh. Lam. Aiiini. s. 

 Vert. (ed. Desh.) vol. x. p. 452. 



This pretty little shell approaches in many of its charac- 

 ters to the Erato Maugeriee of Gray (a common West 

 Indian species), but differs in its colouring, its longer 

 spire, and in its less broad and stunted form. Its shape is 

 reversed oval-conoid, being broad near the top, and gradu- 

 ally attenuated below to a rounded yet moderately narrow 

 peak ; the length is decidedly more than half as much 

 again as the extreme breadth. It is tolerably strong, yet 

 a little tran.slucent, perfectly smooth, being devoid of all 

 sculpture, and of an uniform highly polished ivory-white 

 (occasionally tinged slightly with green or yellow), except 

 at the commencement of the outer lip and at the tip of the 

 beak, which are generally (the latter almost invariably) 

 stained with purplish rose colour. A very blunt apex ter- 

 minates the spire, which, although short (as is customary 

 in the genus), is longer than in Mmigeriae, and usually fills 

 more than a fifth of the dorsal length. It is composed of 

 about three, or three and a half, moderately convex ill- 

 defined whorls, whose longitudinal increase is fast, but not 

 quite regular. The body is subangulatedly tumid, the 

 swell not being in the middle but nearer the suture : the 

 basal declination is moderately quick, and a little convex : 

 the short beak is slightly recurved. The mouth, which 

 terminates below in a rather open canal, is linear, and 

 occupies the greater portion of the ventral length : the 

 spire, however, is very manifestly raised above the level of 

 the outer lip. This last is broadly marginated (hence the 

 contraction of the aperture in the adult shell), and runs, 



