440 MURICID^. 



of the longitudinal ribs with the first costella that distinctly 

 revolves beneath the suture. A very fine but not symme- 

 trically coiled apex terminates the spire, which is composed 

 of seven shortish volutions that are well rounded in the 

 middle, yet are more or less horizontally flattened above so 

 as to be bluntly subscalar ; the suture is fine, and but little 

 slanting. The body, which is moderately ventricose above, 

 attenuates rather abruptly with a rounded declination, 

 to a slender tapering tail, that is almost invariably at least 

 half the length of the body, and sometimes, even, forms 

 nearly half the length of the final whorl. The aper- 

 ture, which is of a reversed flask-shape, being produced 

 below into a scarcely recurved narrow canal (which, is des- 

 titute of a siphonal ridge), vies with, or even slightly ex- 

 ceeds the spire in length ; it is not at all peaked above, as 

 the outer lip, which, although jagged at the edge by the 

 external riblets, is simple and acute, juts out almost at 

 right angles, and is prominently arcuated until it rather 

 abruptly changes to sub vertical at the commencement of the 

 canal. The throat of most adult examples is spirally 

 roughened by raised sulci ; the pillar, which is moderately 

 incurved above, and provided in aged specimens with 

 a thin appressed lip, is destitute of any sculpture. A 

 fine example, three quarters of an inch in length measured 

 three-eighths of an inch in breadth.* 



* Under the name of F. decussalus. Brown (lUust. Conch. G. B. p. 7, pi. 5, 

 f. 53, 55) has given two discordant delineations of a shell, which, unless intended 

 for muricatus, we cannot assign to any existing species known to be a native of our 

 coasts. Figure 53 indeed, is not so unlike it, but more resembles the rostratus of 

 Olivi, which may prove indigenous, as a broken individual has been picked up by 

 Mrs. R. Smith at Tenby. Figure 55 reminds one rather of a miniature F. 

 pyrulatus of Reeve. The description, which does not well suit either of these 

 two species, runs as follows : — 



"Shell fusiform ; spire short, consisting of live well rounded abruptly tapering 

 volutions, separated by a deep suture, and little more than a third the length of 

 the body ; twelve strong longitudinal ribs cover the shell from the venter to the 



