494 CYPIliEAD^. 



CYPRjEA. Linn.^us. 



Shell ovate, ventricose, more or less subglobose, surface 

 polished, smooth or suleated, whorls convolute, spire en- 

 veloped by the body-whorl and only very slightly visible, 

 aperture elongated, narrow, canaliculated at each end, 

 outer lip inflected, both lips in most species crenulated. 

 No epidermis. 



Animal with very large smooth or tuberculated mantle- 

 lobes, capable of entirely or almost entirely investing the 

 shell, on which a line or groove marks the approximation 

 of their edges. Head broad, sublunate ; proboscis retrac- 

 tile ; tentacula long, subulate, the eyes on bulgings at 

 their external bases. E-ows of lingual teeth composed of 

 one quadrate uncinated axile tooth flanked ou each side 

 by three uncinated hamate laterals ; jaws corneous ; lin- 

 gual ribband rather long. JNIale organs very large, com- 

 pressed, reflected. Branchial plume single. 



In the young state the shell of these cowries are very 

 dissimilar from adults, and since the size of individuals of 

 the same species is very variable, so that a young specimen 

 may often be found as large as a full grown one, mistakes 

 have been made, and much controversy wasted about sup- 

 posed specific, and even generic, differences between young 

 and old examples. This extensive and most beautiful 

 genus is so poorly represented in our seas by but a single 

 species, that a discussion of the many points of interest 

 presented by the features and variations of the animals 

 it includes, and the peculiarities of the structure of the 

 shell, would be out of place in this work. 



