MARINE MOLLUSCA OF THE UNITED STATES. 19 
4. Not umbilicated. Shell pear-shaped ; fusiform ; outer lip thin ; columella 
smooth. 
Pear-shaped ; spire short ; whorls angular above ; canal long, curved, open ; 
operculum with apical nucleus. Sycotyrus, Browne. 
Pyriform, light, ventricose, ribbed, and cancellated ; spire very short ; aper- 
ture large ; columella simple ; canal straight, elongated; outer lip thin, 
entire. Ficus, Klein. ~ 
Fusiform ; spire conical; canal straight, long; operculum ovate, curved ; 
nucleus apical. Fusus, Lamarck. 
Genus MUREX, Linn. 
Syst. Nat., edit. x., 746. 1758. 
The murices appear to form only one-third of a whorl annually, 
ending in a varix, but some species form intermediate varices of 
less extent. There are over two hundred species, of world-wide 
distribution. 
1. M. sprnicostaTA, Valenciennes. Fig. 17. 
Kiener, Icon. Coq., 49, t. 41, fi 1. 
Shell pear-shaped, sometimes oblong, sometimes shorter and 
ventricose; whorls biangulated at the upper part, transversely 
ridged and striated ; ridges minute, narrow, rather superficial ; six- 
or-seven varicose veins armed with frond-like spines throughout ; 
spines canaliculated, slightly curved, the basal, and those upon 
the posterior angles, longer, sharp-pointed ; white, ridges reddish- 
brown, stained here and there with small crescent-shaped spots of 
a deeper color; interior of the aperture white, stained in places 
with ruddy spots; canal rather elongated; sometimes shorter, 
recurved. 
Beaufort, North Carolina, to Gulf of Mexico. 
The North Carolina specimens are generally worn, evidently 
dead shells. This is probably the most northern limit of the 
species. 
Subgenus Urosalpinx, Stimpson. 
Am. Journ. Conch., i. 58. 1865. 
Shell elongated, oval or short fusiform, longitudinally ribbed or 
undulated and spirally striated; aperture with a short canal- 
Operculum semi-cordate, with the nucleus at the outer edge a lit- 
tle below the middle. 
1. U. cinrreus, Say. Fig. 42. 
Fusus. Journ. Phil. Acad., ii. 236. 1821. 
Buccinum plicosum, Menke, Synopsis, 2d edit. 59. 1830. 
Shell oval, fusiform, with five or six convex volutions crossed 
