Mr. A. II. Cooke on Vulsella. 59 



was seen struggling near the shore in TJrafirth Voe, North- 

 mavine, on the west coast of the main island of Shetland, in 

 April 1881, and speedily captured. Mr. Thomas Anderson, 

 who saw the animal in tlie flesh, furnished Prof. Turner with 

 a description of its external appearance, and procured the 

 skeleton for the Anatomical Museum of the University of 

 Edinburgh, where it is now preserved, having been fully de- 

 scribed in the communication before referred to. The animal 

 was a male about 14 feet long. 



14. On the 25th May, 1885, a second Shetland specimen 

 of this species was taken in Voxter Voe, about 13 miles from 

 the spot where the first specimen was secured ; it was a male 

 about 15 feet 8 inches long, and is said to have been accom- 

 panied by a young one about 7 feet long, which escaped. 

 This specimen, although it was flensed and cut into sections 

 before it reached Prof. Turner, enabled that anatomist to give 

 some very valuable information on the anatomy of the soft 

 parts as well as to supply some deficiencies in his previous 

 description of the skeleton. This he did in a communication 

 to the British Association at the Aberdeen meeting, printed in 

 the ' Journal of Anatomy and Physiology ' for Oct. 1885, 

 p. 144 et seq. The complete skeleton of this adult male is 



articulated in the Anatomical ]\Iuseum of the University of 

 Edinburgh. 



15. The most recent occurrence of this species is the speci- 

 men referred to in the early part of this communication. 



VII. — On Vulsella, a Genus of Acephalous Mollusca. By 

 Alfred Hands Cooke, M.A., Curator in Zoology, Museum 

 of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, Cambridge. 



At least nineteen recent species of the Genus Vulsella have 

 been described. Lamarck, to whom the genus is due, de- 

 scribed six {lingulata, Mans^ rugosa^ spongiarum, mytilina^ 

 ovata : Anim. sans Vert. ed. 2, vol. vii. p, 266 f.) . Conrad 

 added one {Nuttalln) ; one {Hiigeln) appears due to Parreiss ; 

 while Reeve, in the ' Conchologia Iconica,' vol. xi., described 

 eleven new species {pholadtformisj isocardia^ tasmanica, 

 attenuata, crenulata^ limceformis^ phasianoptera^ rtalisj lingua- 

 felisj coi-oUata, trita) from the Cumingian collections, the 

 types of which are now in the British Museum. 



1 am not aware that any note of suspicion, save one, has 

 ever been sounded with regard to the genuineness of any of 

 these so-called species. That was by G. B. Sowerby the 

 elder, in 1825. Writing after Lamarck's work had been 



