E. A. SMITH : ON SOUTH AFRICAN VOLUTIDiE. 233 



3. Voluta (Alcithoe) Africana, Reeve. 

 Voluta Africana, Reeve: Proc. Zool. Soc, 1856, p. 2, pi. xxxiii, 

 figs 3, 4. Tryon : Man. Conch., vol. iv, p. 95, pi. xxx, 

 fig. 127 (copy of Reeve). Sowerby: Thes. Conch., vol. v, 

 p. 303, pi. Dxvi, figs. 165, 166, original. 



TTah. — East coast of Africa (Reeve) ; S.E. Africa (Sowerby) ; Port 

 Elizabeth (Sowerby, " Marine Shells of S. Africa," p. 18) ; St. Johns, 

 S. Africa (Capt. \V. H. Turton Coll. in Brit. Mus.) ; Pondoland 

 (Ponsonby Collection in Brit. Mus.) ; ten miles off Durban, in 

 40 fathoms. 



A specimen from the last-mentioned locality, recently acquired by 

 the British Museum, is in perfectly fresh condition and doubtless was 

 obtained alive. In form it resembles fairly closely the type figured 

 by Reeve, but differs in colour and in the smaller number of ribs, 

 which are more tubercular upon the last whorl. The specimen may 

 thus be described : — 



Ovate, turrcted, rather solid, bluish grey, profusely lineated longi- 

 tudinally and speckled with brown, the markings being crossed or 

 interrupted by numerous transverse fine lines of the ground colour, 

 and also marked irregularly with scattered spots and dots of the same 

 tint, marked outside the labrum with blackish lines which may be 

 single, in pairs, in threes or even in fours, and which terminate upon 

 the edge of the lip in slight tubercular prominences ; whorls 5£, 

 whereof the two apical are smooth, rounded, and form the obtuse 

 protoconch ; the normal whorls are concave above, costate, the ribs 

 being obsolete near the suture in the last two and becoming more and 

 more nodose at the angle as the shell increases, being very prominent, 

 acute, and ten in number upon the last. The entire surface is covered 

 with fine spiral striae and sulci both upon and between the costse ; 

 the aperture is flesh-tinted within, and the columella is of a slightly 

 deeper colour, but marked at the upper end with the characteristic 

 coal-black blotch ; the plicae are five in number, the two uppermost, 

 however, being very faint. The cauda of the body-whorl is prettily 

 marked with fine arched red lines. Length 47, diam. maj. 27 mm. 



Another specimen from Durban, in equally fresh condition, submitted 

 to me by Mr. Ponsonby, is a little smaller and has only nine plicae on 

 the body-whorl. An operculum presumably belonging to it appears 

 to agree very closely with that of V. musica. 1 It is thin, horny, 

 narrow, elongate, curved, unguieular, with a terminal nucleus, 

 externally marked with fine strongl} r arcuate lines of growth. The 

 lower surface is glossy at the nuclear free end and along one side. 

 The part attached to the animal is dull, narrowly ovate, and exhibits 

 a few well-marked periods of growth. In general appearance it 

 resembles the operculum of Neptunea, but is narrower and curved to 

 the right instead of to the left. That of V. musica is similar in this 

 respect. 



1 Fischer : Journ. de Conch., vol. xxvii (1879), pp. 97-106, pi. v, figs. 1-6. 



