394 MURIClDiE. 



times with black, most strongly so at the head and siphon. 

 The head is crescentic with linear acute tentacula, bearing 

 the eyes on thickened portions at a third of their length : 

 the anterior angles of the foot are shortly recurved ; its 

 caudal extremity is very shortly bifurcated, almost as if 

 notched, and just above the furcations are two cirri, or short 

 processes. The operculum is somewhat pyriform and 

 broader than in pygmtza. According to Loven, the 

 axile tooth of the tongue is of more ample jDroportional 

 dimensions than in reticulata^ and the broad hamate uncini 

 have a denticular process near their bases externally. 



This shell is so universally and abundantly diffused 

 around the British shores, that an enumeration of localities 

 would be superfluous. It ranges from near low-water-mark 

 to as deep as fifty fathoms, preferring stony and gravelly 

 ground. Its colours are most brilliantly displayed in 

 southern examples. A variety, with a white varix on the 

 centre of the whorl, has been found by Mr. Alder at Whit- 

 burn, and by Mr. Barlee in Galway. It is a Celtic Mollusk 

 in the main, but ranges northwards to the Arctic Circle, 

 and southwards to Madeira. It is found fossil in the red 

 crag, and in the glacial drift. 



N. PYGMiEA, Lamarck. 



Outer lip thickened by an external varix ; mouth more or less 

 stained with purplish red ; dorsal edge of the canal not spotted 

 with blackish brown. 



Plate CVIII. fig. 5, 6", and (Animal) Plate L L. fig. 2 (as varicosa.) 



huccinum rcticuJatum, puiyle-moutlied, var. Mont. Test. Brit. vol. i. p. 241 ? 



Runella pyymcea. Lam. (1822) Anim. s. Vert. (ed. Desh.) vol. ix, p. 550. — 

 BLAiNV.Faune Franc;. Moll. p. 121,pl 4,c.f. 3. — Deshavks, 

 Encyclop. Method. Vers, vol. iii. p. 881. — Kiener, Coq. 

 Vivant. Ranel. p. 33, pi. 10, f. 2. 



