278 BUCCINID^. 



men of the reversed monstrosity is in the collection of 

 the late Mr. Bean at Scarborough. Many years ago he 

 sent his little granddaughter to the pier on an errand, 

 and on her retui'n he scolded her for loitering. She 

 held up her pinafore to wipe her eyes, when down fell 

 some of these whelks which she had picked up ; his quick 

 eyes lit on a left-handed specimen, and it is needless 

 to say that he at once forgave her. A scalariform speci- 

 men occurred to me in Swansea Bay ; and one almost 

 without a canal was given to me by Mr. Dillwyn as 

 Irish. The last may possibly be a hybrid between this 

 species and a Littorina. P. lapillus has been recorded 

 as fossil in the Red Crag and every subsequent deposit, 

 including Moel Tryfaen ; post-glacial formation in Nor- 

 way, 0-100 feet (Sars). Its foreign distribution in a 

 living state comprises the Arctic seas of both hemi- 

 spheres, the European coasts of the North Atlantic 

 (0-20 f.) southwards to Santander (E. J. Lowe), Corunna 

 and Vigo (M 'Andrew) ; Mogador, a dwarf state or 

 variety, abundantly, with P. hcemastoma (R. T. Lowe) ; 

 Canada (D^Urban) ; United States (Gould and others) ; 

 Mexico (Brit. Mus.) ; north-west coast of America (P. 

 Carpenter). Senegal, Teneriffe, and Fayal in the 

 Azores, as well as the coast of Brittany, are given by 

 Adanson as localities for the present species ; he also 

 described and figured P. hcemastoma. The variety im- 

 bricata was noticed by Fabricius as Greenlandic ; and I 

 have taken it in the south-west of France. 



This mollusk has a shambling gait, and sedentary 

 habits; it seems to be always eating, or digesting its food. 

 Lister, however, observed it early in the morning, at the 

 commencement of June, otherwise engaged, viz. in per- 

 petuating its species on a dry rock after the tide had 

 receded. It is very destructive to mussel-beds, and is 



