118 PROCEEDINGS OF THE MALACOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The Neptuneopsis was well preserved in spirit, but the Vohtfih'thes 

 was still more admirably preserved in an extended condition in 

 formol, an ideal medium for specimens for dissection. 



1. Voltjta (Cymbiola) ancilla (Sol.). 



The external characters of this Volute are precisely similar to those 

 of V. ( Vespertilio) vespertilio, Linn., and V. (Alcithoe) Pacifica, Sol., 

 as figured by Quoy & Gaimard, the most notable feature being the 

 curiously flattened and expanded head and the appendices to the 

 siphon (PI. X, Fig. 1). 



The pallial complex. — Of the two specimens examined one was 

 a male and the other a female, the former showing a moderately 

 developed, grooved penis, situated just behind the right head-lobe ; 

 a long groove led up to the opening of the vas-deferens high up in 

 the mantle-cavity. In the female a large, swollen, glandular oviduct 

 opened close to the anus. 



The gill, as in other Rhachiglossa, consists of triangular plates, and 

 in this respect the Rhachiglossa appear more primitive than the 

 Tsenioglossa. Similarly, the osphradium is large and bipectinate, 1 

 the hypobranchial mucous gland very conspicuous, and resembling 

 that of Buccinum ; the renal aperture is also very prominent. (PI. X, 

 Fig. 1.) 



The alimentary canal. — The mouth opens on the end of a moderately 

 developed introvert. The buccal mass is conspicuous, and the radula- 

 sac large. From the dorsal surface of the former the oesophagus 

 originates ; this is a very muscular tube, which changes its character 

 abruptly shortly after emerging from the introvert. At this point 

 the oesophagus appears to be temporarily enlarged and to be more 

 muscular, but it rapidly diminishes again, and its walls no longer 

 appear conspicuously muscular. The oesophagus («0 passes up over 

 the columella muscle, becomes slightly dilated, and then suddenly 

 constricted before opening into the stomach. The stomach (st,), which 

 is a slightly enlarged portion of the gut, is characterized by the con- 

 spicuous folding of its wall and by the opening of the bile-duct ; it 

 passes imperceptibly into the intestine. The whole alimentary canal 

 has a simple U -shape, the stomach being situated at the bend. 



The most important features of this canal are the salivary glands 

 and the oesophageal caecum (PL X, Fig. 1, o.c). The former consists 

 of two pairs, the one tubular and the other racemose, 2 situated in 



1 It if? strange to find so well known a malacologist as Dall (Bull. Mus. Comp. 



Zool., vol. xviii. 1889, pp. 152 and 155) still regarding the osphradium as 

 a gill ; at least, he speaks of Aurinia, one of the Volutidse, as possessing two 

 well -developed gills, and these can only be the true gill and the osphradium. 



2 Quoy & Gaimard and Bouvier both fell into the error of taking these two pairs 



of glands for a single pair, and regarding the tubular gland as a posterior 

 continuation of the racemose gland. It has not been deemed necessary to 

 figure these glands in more than one of the animals described, since they do 

 not vary. Their position and shape will be gathered by reference to Figs. 4, 

 5, and 6. 



