346 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. [1885. 



small aud short, the tips hardly prolonged beyond the eye, and forming 

 ii blunt oblique point. In life, however, they were probably more ex- 

 tended. The mouth was large, circular, and radiately wrinkled. The 

 proboscis long, white, muscular, cylindrical or gently tapering to the 

 point, which was laterally compressed, making the orifice nearly a ver- 

 tical slit. The gullet was extremely capacious, forming a densely lam- 

 inated croi), which extended backward as far as the tissues 'Were pre- 

 served. There were no jaws. The gills, genitalia, &c., were decayed 

 so as to prevent recognition or description. The radula was dispropor- 

 tionately small and contained about eighty rows of teeth transversely; 

 formula, 1 • 1 • 1 or 1 • ^ • 1. Its total length was about 0.2 of an inch, 

 the proboscis being about 2.25 in all. The rhachidian tooth is provided 

 with a wide, doubly arched base and with three cusps, close together, 

 of which the median one is about twice as long as the other two. Lat- 

 erals simple, broad, strong, with a single cusp. There was no indica- 

 tion of any small outer cusp, such as is figured for T. cornigera by 

 Troschel. 



The teeth recall those of Cynodonta cornigera and diifer from them 

 chiefly in the greater width of the rhachidian base and the absence of 

 the denticulatious on the outer corners of the laterals. These last were 

 found in two instances by Troschel. who ascribed their absence from 

 Gray's figure by supjiosing that they were broken or abortive, as occa- 

 sionally happens. 



We may now consider the bearing of our new information on the sys- 

 tematic position of Turbinella. It would seem that its characters as 

 derived from the soft parts merely confirm those derived from the shell, 

 by which it has been hitherto classified ; a fact less startling but perhaps 

 not less significant than the cases in which the diagnosis from the shell 

 has not been fully borne out by a later knowledge of the complete an- 

 atomy. 



The typical species of the genus included in Voluia bj" Linne was 

 named Turbinella by Lamarck in 1799. It had previously received the 

 catalogue name of Xancus from Bolten in 1798, in allusion to its Indian 

 name of sianko or shank-shell. Bolten's name was never defined or 

 illustrated by him, and has merely an historical interest, although five 

 years after Lamarck's paper, Link put Bolten's name on a scientific 

 basis by defining it, as well as Bolten's other name of Vasum, for the 

 rough Tnrbinellas, afterward called Cynodonta by Schumacher. We 

 may formulate the nomenclature as follows : 



TURBINELLA Lamarck. 



Historical synonymy : 

 Mazza, Klein, Tent. Meth., p. 62, Vlo'i— pro parte. 

 Rapum et murex, sp. Hiiiuplirey, Mus. Cal., 1797. 

 Xancus Bolten, Mus. Bolt., p. 134, 1798. 16., 1819, p. 94. 



