148 AMERICAN JOURNAL 



REVIEWS. 



I.— AMERICAN. 



Canadian Naturalist and Geologist. New Series, II., No. 5, Octo- 

 ber, 1865. 



Review of the Northern Buccinums, and Remarks on some 

 other Northern Marine Mblluslcs. Part 1. BY DE; "VVM. 

 STIMPSON. 



This very able memoir, by our esteemed contributor, in- 

 cludes detailed descriptions and distinctive characters of all 

 the American species, together with notes on their geographi- 

 cal distribution. We quote some portions of the paper, deem- 

 ing it of too important character to be passed over with an 

 ordinary notice. 



The author remarks, that, "Among the spiral grooves and 

 striae or ridges with which the shell is always more or less 

 deeply sculptured, two kinds may usually be distinguished, a 

 large and a small kind, those of the latter being by far the 

 more numerous, and distributed upon the surface of the others. 

 These kinds we shall call, for convenience, the primary and 

 secondary grooves, or ridges, as the case may be. The differ- 

 ence between them is very conspicuous in B. glaciate. The 

 columella has normally three folds, an upper, middle, and 

 lower one; — the lower one constituting the oblique inferior 

 margin of the columella. These folds are not always distinct, 

 but all of them may be made out in B. tenue. The middle 

 fold is obsolete in most of the species, but is very prominent 

 aud tooth-like in B. ciliatum." 



