167 
NOTE ON CYPRZA MICRODON, Gray. 
By Enear A. Surru, F.Z.S., ete. 
Read 14th March, 1902. 
In the Journal of Conchology, vol. x, pp. 117-119, Mr. J. C. Melvill 
has made some remarks on Cyprea chrysalis, Kiener, and C. microdon, 
Gray, maintaining that they are synonymous, and that authors have 
mistaken another species for C. microdon. 
The object of the present note is, in the first place, to point out that 
I fail to discover, except in the case of Weinkauff among the mono- 
graphers, that any misconception of the latter species has occurred ; 
secondly, that it has always been rightly recognized in the British 
Museum collection; and finally, that the type of the species is not in 
the Gray Collection. 
G. B. Sowerby, sen., G. B. Sowerby, jun., Reeve, Kiener, Roberts, 
and Weinkauff are the authors who have published illustrated 
monographs of the genus Cyprea. Sowerby, sen., in the ‘‘ Concho- 
logical Illustrations,” figured C. mierodon on pl. i, fig. 83. This was 
copied by Kiener (Coquilles vivantes, pl. lvi, fig. 5). Reeve (Conch. 
Icon., pl. xxiv, figs. 139a-6) gave an enlarged figure of a shell, now 
in the British Museum, from the collection of Mr. Gaskoin, which 
agrees with Sowerby’s figure, save only that it is enlarged. The shell 
depicted by Reeve is the true microdon of Gray. In the monograph 
by Sowerby, jun. (Thesaurus Conchyl., vol. iv, p. 30, pl. 323, 
figs. 385-6), it is accurately described, and correctly, though rather 
roughly figured. This figure was reproduced by Roberts in Tryon’s 
Manual of Conchology, vol. vii, pl. v, figs. 74, 75. 
Cyprea ehrysalis, which evidently, as Mr. Melvill observes, is the 
same as C. microdon, was figured by Kiener (op. cit., pl. liv, figs. 4, 4a). 
These figures have been copied by Sowerby, jun., Roberts, and 
Weinkauff, but are not given in Reeve’s ‘‘ Conchologia Iconica”’ as 
stated by Melvill.? 
Roberts and Sowerby do not appear to have recognized the fact that 
Kiener’s species was the same as the one they depicted under the 
name of C. microdon. 
1 Journ. of Conch., vol. vii, p. 121. 
