166 FYRAMIDELLID.T^. 



Essex (J. G. J.). A common but most elegant shell. 

 It is found living at low-water mark of spring tides, and 

 in the laminarian zone_, as well as dredged mthout the 

 animal in the coralline zone. Post- tertiary deposit in 

 Sussex (Godwin- Austen) ; ? Norwich Crag(Wigham,^c?e 

 S. P. Woodward); ? Coralline Crag (S.Wood); Italian 

 tertiaries (Risso_, as Turbonilla plicatula, and Philippi) . 

 The variety has occurred to me in several localities ; this 

 is far less slender or needle-shaped than the Chemnitzia 

 gracilis^ of Philippi, for which I at one time mistook 

 it. Beyond our shores the present species is widely 

 distributed, from Tromso in Finmark (Sars) to the 

 Canary Isles (D^Orbigny and M*^ Andrew), and in every 

 part of the Mediterranean and Adriatic; ^gean (Forbes). 

 The Red Sea is given by Philippi, on the authority of 

 Hemprich and Ehrenberg, but, it seems, erroneously. 

 No mollusk is at present known to be common to the 

 Red Sea and Mediterranean. The depths recorded by 

 various authors range from the shore to 50 f. 



One of my specimens, which wants the first 4 whorls, 

 has no fewer than 12 left, and is nearly six-tenths of an 

 inch long. Mr. Bretherton says, in the ' Zoologist ^ for 

 1858, that it will continue lively in the aquarium for 

 at least a month. 



There can surely be no valid reason why any well 

 ascertained name, given by the " princeps naturae curio- 

 sorum^^ (TToSe? hr] KeWt TifjbLcoraTot) to a species de- 

 scribed in his ' Systema Naturae,^ should sink into ob- 

 livion. In the present instance there is no ambiguity 

 of definition, no question of identification, no risk of 

 increasing the confusion which unfortunately pervades 

 our scientific nomenclature. If the author, indeed, had 



* Not Turbo gracilis of Broccbi, which is a miocene fossil, nor C. gra- 

 cilis of J)e Koninck, which is palajozoic. 



