364 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
badly deseribed. The publication of the excellent work of G. O. Sars 
has at length rendered it possible to identify many species, hitherto 
doubtfal, with his Norwegian forms, though there may still be doubt as 
to the proper application of the names given by earlier writers, and 
even as to the actual specific distinctness of all the forms that he has 
described. The sexual variations he has not taken into account. Dur. 
ing numerous dredging expeditions made in the past twenty years, the 
writer has obtained a large series of specimens of Bela, which he has 
reserved for a more complete revisionN hereafter; but some of the more 
conspicuous forms not yet recorded from New England, and in part not 
known as American species, are here mentioned. Figures of all these 
and others have been engraved for a more detailed paper and will, it is 
hoped, soon be published. 
Bela Pingelii (Moller, 1842) H. & A. Adams, i, p. 92, 1858. 
G. O. Sars, Moll. Reg. Arct. Norv., p. 2-3, pl. 16, fig. 5, 1878. 
This very distinct species has been repeatedly dredged by me at Hast- 
port, Me., and by the United States Fish Commission parties in Casco 
Bay, Massachusetts Bay, on George’s Bank, and off Nova Scotia. It 
has not unfrequently been confounded by authors with B. cancellata. Tt 
is our most slender and elongated species, with evenly rounded whorls, 
strongly cancellated, over the whole surface, by numerous slender, longi- 
tudinal ribs and revolving raised lines or cinguli, which are about 
equally prominent, and form small, round nodules where they cross the 
ribs. 
Bela Sarsii Verrill, sp. nov. 
Bela cancellata G. O. Sars, op. cit., p. 224, pl. 23, fig. 31; pl. viii, fig. 9 (not 
_ of Couthouy). j 
. This name is proposed for the species described and figured by G. O. 
Sars as B. cancellata. The same species was formerly collected by Dr. 
A. S. Packard at Labrador, and sent to us by him under the name of 
B. excrata. It is a small, strongly sculptured species, with obtuse, 
angular-shouldered whorls, and is especially distinguished by its few 
broad and strong ribs, crossed by rather distant revolving lines, giving 
it a coarsely cancellated surface. 
Bela cancellata (Mighels) Stimpson, Check List. 
Fusus cancellatus Mighels, Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., i, p. 50, ins? Boston 
Journ. Nat. Hist., iv, p. 52, pl. 4, fig. 18, Jan., 1842. 
Bela cancellata Gould, Invert. Mass., ed. ii, p. 355, description (not the figure, 
624). 
The true Sela canceliata (Mighels) is a common shell on the New En- 
gland coast, in 20 to 60 fathoms. It is an elongated species, with iong, 
acute spire, and with the whorls moderately and obtusely shouldered at 
some distance below the suture, the flattened portion above the shoulder 
being destitute of revolving lines, but crossed by the numerous oblique 
ribs. which are strongly bent at the shoulder and take a sigmoid form. 
