Genus 1. VERMETUS, Adanson. 



Animal ; allied to that of Scalaria. 



Shell ; tubular, irregularly convoluted into a loose spire, divided 

 internally at irregular intervals by septa ; operculum horny. 



The history of this genus presents an instructive example of the value 

 of original observation. Naturalists living at home at ease are very apt 

 to perpetuate error; and even Linnseus, while luxuriating in his profes- 

 sorial chair at Upsal, fell into the belief that the Vermetus shell belonged 

 to the same natural order as the Serpulce. Adanson, a veteran member 

 of the Academy of Sciences of Paris and contemporary of Linnseus, inves- 

 tigated with much original research the zoology of the coast of Senegal, 

 and discovered, amongst other equally interesting facts, that the animal of 

 Vermetus was no annelide, but a mollusk. It is, in fact, a kind of un- 

 rolled Scalaria or DelphimUa, and, like them, is furnished with a horny 

 operculum. Owing to their loose manner of convolution, several speci- 

 mens often become twisted among each other. 



We have no Vermetus on our own shores. Its southern limit is in the 

 Lusitanian portion of the Mediterranean, and it reaches to Australia, but 

 of its geographical range little is at present known. D'Orbigny describes 

 a species from South America; and Dr. Gould includes the Senegal V. 

 lumbricalis among the molluscan fauna of Massachusetts.* 



1. amvulus, Rous. 



2. arenarius, Quoy. 



3. bicai*inatus, Desk. 



4. dentifera, Quoy. 



5. eburneus, Reeve. 



6. gigas, Bivon. 



Species. 



7. glomeratus, Bivon. 13. subcancellatus, Biv. 



8. Knorri, Besh. 14. tenuis, Rous. 



9. lumbricalis, Lam. 15. triqueter, Biv. 



10. Nova3-Hollandia3j.KoMS.16. tulipa, Rous. 



11. pellucidus, Brod. 17. varians, B'Orb. 



12. semisurrectus, Biv. 



Figure. 



Vermetus eburneus. PI. 22. Pig. 130. Shell, showing its loose, de- 

 tached mode of convolution. 



* " A very fine group was hooked up by a friend in New Bedford Harbour, containing not less 

 than fifty individuals inseparably intertwined. The living animals then occupied them." — Invert. 

 Mass., p. 247. 



VOL. II. 



