89 



Genus 3. APORRHAIS, Be Montford* 



Animal ; disc truncated in front, acuminated behind, carrying at 

 the extremity a small oblony horny operculum, head very large, 

 proboscidiform, somewhat cylindrical, obliquely truncated ; 

 mouth longitudinal, occupying the length of the truncated por- 

 tion of the head; tentacles very long and pointed, pedunculated 

 at the base, at the summit of which pedunculated portion is the 

 eye ; mantle thin, simple, or lobed. 



Shell ; elongated, fusiform, slightly canaliciilated at the base ; 

 columella straight, rather callous ; outer lip dilated and thick- 

 ened, detached from the spire at the upper part, and either 

 simple or expanded into claws, or digitations. 



The Strombus pes-Pelicani was set apart as the type of a new genus by 

 De Montford, under the name of Aporrhais, by which it had been distin- 

 guished in the earliest records of Natural History ; and Lamarck, uniting 

 it with the Linnsean Strombus fastis and its congeners, proposed a new 

 genus for their reception, under the name of Rostellaria ; the researches 

 of M. M. Ehrenberg, Quoy and Gaimard, Poli, Deshayes, and Philippi, 

 have, however, demonstrated not only that there is an important generic 

 difference between the animals of the Lamarckian Rostellaria rectirostrum- 

 {Strombus fusus, Linn.), and pes-Pelicani, but that whilst the former is 

 characterized by the same peculiarity of structure as the true Strombus, 

 the latter is wanting in that peculiarity and presents an unexpected affinity 

 with Struthiolaria, in having a large proboscidiform head and ample mouth, 

 without the bifurcated tentacles and divided disc, which is to be found in 

 Rostellaria, Pterocera, and Strombus. 



The mantle of the Aporrha'ules, as in the remaining genera of Alata, is 



* The Aristotelian title of Aporrhais, adopted by Sowerby after the example of De Mont- 

 ford, has been objected to by Philippi, substituting that of Chenopus, on the grounds'of its more 

 especial reference to the Pterocera. It is true that Rondelet, one of the earliest writers on 

 Natural History after the revival of letters, has figured a P. lambis for Aporrhais ; but it seems 

 evident, upon his own testimony, that the name, derived from 'Airoppeco to flow out in drops, 

 was suggested to the Athenian philosopher by the spouted A. pes-Pelicani of the Mediterranean, 

 from whence the materials for the ' Historia Animalium ' of antiquity, were mainly derived : — 

 " Dicam praeterea quod suspicionibus et conjecturis tantum inductis de 'A7roppai.*8eo- sentio ; 

 nimirum Muricum generis sunt qute vocant Grseci Colycia, turbiuata a?que sed minora multo ". 

 I consider, therefore, that the word Aporrhais may be maintained without prejudice, for the 

 group under consideration, the type of which was, no doubt, the particular shell referred to by 

 the great father of zoology. It should perhaps be added, that the word " Muricum " just cited, 

 is not used in the sense in which we understand it ; in Gaza's translation of Aristotle, quoted by 

 Rondelet, the ' ' Kivoppaibecr are rendered Murices, and the Krjpvxa Buccina, including the 

 Tritons ; while the Murices of our own day were the Uopcpvpa or Purpura of the ancients, 

 from the circumstance of their obtaining the Tyrian purple from that genus. 



