67 



however, the most characteristic of the group ; in the exhaustless stores of 

 Hugh Cuming, Esq. are thirty or more distinct kinds, collected by that 

 indefatigable traveller in the course of his prolific researches, nearly the 

 whole of which remain to be described. Suffice it to say, that the chief 

 peculiarity consists in the notch near the base of the lip, though indepen- 

 dent of this, the species are characterized throughout by a marked degree 

 of generic affinity. 



1. articulatus, Hinds. 

 3. crassus, Kinds. 



3. Cumingii, Reeve. 



4. gaudens, Hinds. 



Species *. 



5. pyrostoma, Reeve. 



6. reticosus, Hinds. 



7. roseatus, Hinds. 



8. senticosus, Montf. 



9. Veragueusis, Hinds. 

 10. virgatus, Hinds. 



Figure. 



Phos Cumingii. PI. 3. Pig. 16. Showing the front portion of the shell. 



Genus 11. BUCCINUM, Llnnmis. 



Animal ; disc oval, sometimes elongated in front ; head narrow, 

 jlattened, with two cylindrical tentacles, at the base of which 

 are tioo slightly pedunculated eyes ; trunk cylindrical, more or 

 less elongated. 



Shell ; ovate or oblong, emarginated and sometimes a little chan- 

 nelled at the base, columella for the most part smooth ; aperture 

 oblong-ovate, sometimes furnished on each side at the 2ipper 

 part with a callosity or denticles ; lip very slightly, if at all, 

 thickened, serrated or crenated. 



The Latin word Buccimim, a trumpet, was applied indiscriminately by 

 the ancients, to almost any sort of spiral univalve shell ; Linnaeus made 

 a more restricted application of the word, but his genus still included 

 species of very anomalous character. Lamarck, the great reformer of the 

 Linnsean system of classification, divided the Bicccina of that author, into 

 several excellent acknowledged genera, including nearly the whole of those 

 enumerated under the present family, reserving the Buccimim undatum, 

 (the common Whelk of our mai'ket) for the type of his genus. Tliis has 

 been since dismembered of the groups Nassa, Bullia, Cjjllene, and Bhos, 

 and M. Deshayes further distinguishes the Whelk, and its congeners, by the 



* The species above referred to in Mr. Cumiug's collection, will shortly be dcscriberl .'nid 

 illustrated in the ' Conchologia Iconica. ' 



k2 



