Naticse, Lamellarise, and Velutinse. 51 



notes. I have omitted to state one of the proofs of the intimate 

 connexion between lanthina and Scalaria, that they are the only 

 two spiral animals which copiously, spontaneously and immedi- 

 ately emit the purple fluid. Many of the Murices produce the 

 purple dye, but not until the gland is punctured, when a 

 greenish white fluid is obtained, which becomes purple, on ex- 

 posure to heat, light, air, and the sun. 



Natica, Bruguiere. 



This genus has several British species, and is one of the 

 anomalies that occasionally are met with in every department of 

 zoology, and which cannot enter into natural order in regular 

 progression, but must be intercalated as an excrescence in line 

 with the object to which it has the greatest affinity. The present 

 animal has alliances throughout the scale of its class : — by the 

 position of the eyes in the species that have them, and the pecu- 

 liar character of the flat tentacula coalescing with the membrane 

 of the head, it exhibits a connexion with the Eulimce and 

 ChemnitsicB ; it shows only slight connexion by the operculum 

 with the Littorime; it has also by the foot a certain affinity with 

 the Bulla; but the important organ which fixes its true position 

 is the retractile proboscis, the invariable concomitant of the 

 Muricidal tribes, by which this apparently ambiguous animal 

 becomes one of the points of transition from the Uolostomata to 

 the Canalifera, and I think that it ought to enter the natural 

 order as a member of the new family. 



Authors state that Natica has affinity with Sigaretus, an exotic 

 genus of which there is no true British species; we cannot concur 

 in this view until the anatomy of the latter is more fully exa- 

 mined; if it is found to have the retractile proboscis, it will be 

 in the same category as Natica, and must be withdrawn from 

 the HaliotidcB. 



Natica monilifera, Lamarck. 

 Natica glaucina, Anglorum. 



Animal inhabiting a spiral, globosely conical, smooth shell of 

 6-8 tumid volutions. The mantle, neck, and body are of the 

 palest or lightest mouse-colour ; it is thin, rather lax, but does 

 not extend beyond the shell; — Lamarck's commentator, M. 

 Deshayes, says, " Le manteau se developpe particulierement sur 

 les parties anterieures de la coquille;" this is quite incorrect; he 

 has mistaken the upper skin of the anterior portion of the foot, 

 which some call the mentum, for the mantle. There is no di- 

 stinct head ; the only vestige of one is a compressed arcuated 

 veil which is fixed by the centre of its membrane on the anterior 

 part of the fleshy tunic of the proboscidal sheath, and on each 



4* 



