BUCCINUM. 405 



second form is the var. 2 of Hancock. In deep water, from 

 forty fathoms, or thereabouts, downwards to eighty, is a 

 third principal variety, in the main a thinner and slenderer 

 shell with rounded volutions, more delicately sculptured, and 

 covered with a soft pilose epidermis ; the aperture yel- 

 lowish or tinged with purple. The undulations are not 

 so strongly marked as in the former variety, and even 

 in specimens of considerable dimensions, the whole texture 

 is lighter and thinner. The body-whorl is ample in its 

 tumidity, although the spire be produced. This is var. 1 

 of Alder and Hancock, pelagicum of King. The dis- 

 tinctions drawn by these gentlemen from Northumberland 

 specimens are very important, as we have had an op- 

 portunity of seeing when examining northern collections, 

 among others a very full series collected with much care 

 by Mr. Embletou of Embleton. 



Still more produced, is a variety not uncommon in 

 deep water in the Zetland seas and off the Hebrides, a 

 form which approaches in outline and elongation the B. 

 fusiforme. It inhabits deep water, and exhibits two va- 

 riations, the one with a purple aperture, nearly ribless 

 whorls, and a moderately thin shell, covered by an epi- 

 dermis ; the other with a stronger shell, well marked 

 undulations, banded colouring, and a white or yellowish 

 aperture. This last is the forma elatior of Middendorff. 



The remarkable shell described and figured by Broderip 

 as B. acuminatum, and now contained in the collection 

 at the British Museum, appears to us to be an abnormal 

 variety of undatum, with very flattened whorls, and con- 

 sequently an imperfectly angulated base. Of other ab- 

 normalities, or rather distortions, we are acquainted with 

 a reversed form ; another having a very ventrlcose body- 

 whorl and a short spire, the whorls of which ai-e cari- 



