OF CONCHOLOGY. 123 



slightly flattened below, the suture ; spire very small, not ele- 

 vated ; apex not above the level of the last whorl. Aperture 

 subquadrate, outer lip very much produced, slightly angulated 

 above and below. Suture deep appressed. Nucleus smaller 

 than in the last ; surface of the whorls smooth, without striulge. 

 Lat. -46, Ion. -32, alt. -2 in. 



Habitat, with the last two specimens. 



These shells are closely allied, and though their differences in 

 form are evident and considerable, and the fact that one of the 

 species is without the striulse which appear to distinguish the 

 other, and also that these differences are apparently constant, 

 still I should have hesitated about describing them as more than 

 varieties, if it were not that differences appear in the soft parts 

 also. In L. Stearnsii the shell is wholly covered and internal ; 

 in L. rhombica a portion of it appears to remain permanently 

 open and uncovered. These differences were observed in the 

 living animals and communicated to me by Mr. R. E. C. Stearns 

 of California, one of the most active and careful of the concho- 

 logists of the West Coast, to whom I have the pleasure of dedi- 

 cating the first named species. These observations are also con- 

 firmed by alcoholic specimens. 



The following notes are added by Mr. Stearns : 



The animal is bluish subtranslucent, white, looking like a lump 

 of mucus ; the mantle is deeply notched in front. The tentacles 

 are long, with the eyes on their outer bases ; an aperture exists 

 on the right side of the body, in the posterior third, which in life 

 opens and shuts like the aperture of the pulmonary cavity in 

 Limax. 



The larval shells (Eclunospira) of one or both of these species 

 were abundant on the beach at Monterey, in January, 1866. 

 They were transparent, of a cartilaginous consistency, enrolled 

 upon themselves, with an extent of a whorl and a half, and 

 provided with three simple carinae, equidistant from each other. 

 Helicophlegma of D'Orbigny is probably the same thing. 



VELUTINID^E. 



Velutina cryptospira, Midd. 



Velutina cryptospira, Midd., Beitr. Mai. Ros. ii, p. 106 a. 

 Sib., Reise, ii, p. 216, pi. xxv, f. 8 — 10. Martens, 

 Wiegm. Arch, i, 1858, p. 150. 



This species is not uncommon in various parts of Bering 

 Sea. I have obtained it from Unalashka, St. Paul's Island and 

 Norton Sound, and Middendorff reports it from various parts of 



