I 



Naticae, LamellariBe, and Velutinse. 55 



result of various dissections, lead me to observe, that this short 

 proboscis, though retractile, is not the strict and usually tormed 

 muricidal one, as in that tribe the tongue is rarely coiled ; it is, 

 however, thus contorted in our Murex lapillus, Purpura auctorum, 

 an indisputable muricidal animal ; but in this creature, the most 

 anomalous of our five genera, there are a host of characters to 

 prove its close connexion with the Canaliferous tribes;— it is as 

 far from Bulla, the usual conchologist's depositary for animals ot 

 this sort of aspect, as the poles. Its entire coriaceous unreflected 

 mantle has the decided branchial canal of many of theMurices, 

 and M. Cuvier considers it the equivalent of the muricidal shell ; 

 that great naturalist in the anatomy of this animal thus sums up : 

 "En un mot, pour faire du Sigaret un Buccin, il suffirait que 

 les tours de sa coquille moins inegaux, se prolongeassent en une 

 spirale plus aigue." The tentacula arise from the short mem- 

 branous awning of the head; they are long, flattened, pointed, 

 pale yellowish white, with large black eyes, a very small distance 

 from the bases on extremely short off"sets at the external angles, 

 which gives them the appearance of being nearly on the bases of 

 the tentacula. The foot is rather large and long, veiy little 

 rounded in front, but deeply labiated, forming short auricles, 

 and gradually becomes acuminated behind; it is above and below 

 of a pale yellow. The branchial apparatus is, we believe, a single 

 plume, crescent-shaped, which gives it the aspect of being double ; 

 it consists of about twelve vascular filaments lying on the centre 

 of the back part of the head, under the protection of the front 

 portion of the shield, whilst the liver and the ovarium, and in 

 the male the testis, occupy the spiral portion. The anus opens 

 between the mantle and the body, rather posteriorly on the left 

 side. The verge is a spatulate organ on the right side of the 

 neck, and is connected with the testis by a very long convoluted 

 thread or epididymis. 



These animals are sparingly taken in the summer, in the 

 coraUine zone at Exmouth ; but in winter after a gale they are 

 often washed up in great numbers on the Warren Sands, near 

 the same place. 



Having just received live examples, I am enabled to state 

 that the branchial apparatus is a single arcuated light brown 

 plume of coarse strands, transversely placed, with the point 

 reaching to the canal between the foot and the mantle. What 

 Montagu calls an appendage or protruded arm from a sinus of 

 the mantle is what has now been described ; he also mentions 

 and figures the tentacula as very short ; this is not so, unless his 

 specimen was mutilated, a very common occurrence. I have seen 

 hundreds of live animals of all colours, but the tentacula were 

 what would be called moderately long, and at least twice the 

 length of those in Montagu's vignette, fig. 6. 



