54 Mr. W. Clark on the lanthinse, Scalariae, 



Lamellaria, Montagu. 



This genus has not more than one or two British species ; the 

 excellent Montagu, the discoverer of one of them, constituted the 

 genus Lamellaria to receive it ; we are bound to adopt this gene- 

 ric term, though Coriocella would have been more significant, 

 and place in it the L. tentaculata of Montagu and the L. halio- 

 toidea of authors, which latter has been continually shifted from 

 one genus to another. Both these species have, at times, been 

 deposited by mistake in the exotic genus Sigaretus, after La- 

 marckj who had been misled by M. Cuvier having erroneously 

 described the Helix haliotoidea of Linnseus for Adanson's Siga- 

 retus, that has an external shell, which fact — see Natica — has 

 been noticed. M. Blainville expressly formrd the genus Corio- 

 cella to receive M. Cuvier's animal, which is undoubtedly iden- 

 tical with the L.perspicua, but Montagu's appellation claims the 

 priority as to time. As to the natural position of this genus, we 

 must have recourse to that unerring magnet, the malacology of 

 the animal, which consigns it to the vicinity of Murex. This 

 situation, which has already been alluded to by authors, has been 

 looked on by the older zoologists as unnatui-al, but, Uke the 

 preceding genera, it can only be brought into the line of natu- 

 i*al order by being deposited as an anomalous muricidal ex- 

 crescence. 



Lamellaria perspicua, Montagu. 



Sigaretus perspicua, Cuvier et auct. 

 Coriocella perspicua, Blainville. 

 Helix haliotoidea, Linnseus. 

 Bulla haliotoidea, Mont, et aliorum. 



Animal suboval, covered by a strong coriaceous mantle ex- 

 tending on all sides beyond the foot and body, with the margins 

 plain and united, except in front, where there is a short but de- 

 cided branchial fold or canal to admit the water ; the inner sur- 

 face is marked with radiating white lines and flaky spots ; the 

 outer one in different individuals is variable, being often studded 

 with bright orange or citron papillose spots, and in others with 

 brown or red-brown ones. Under the skin, about the centre of 

 the upper surface, is imbedded a white subopake semispiral 

 ear-shaped shell that protects the branchial plume and some of 

 the viscera. The head is a flat, smooth, very inconspicuous pro- 

 jection with a subrotund orifice beneath, from whence the short 

 retractile proboscis is exserted, and at a little distance within it 

 are two fleshy lobes supporting very thin pale corneous plates, 

 between which a long flat spiny tongue springs, and on leaving 

 the palate forms on the top of the back of the head three coils, 

 attd is then continued to the stomach. These remarks, the 



