194 AURICULnXE. 



ness of the volutions. The mouth is generally 

 strongly toothed ; but sometimes it is nearly smooth. 

 The hinder part of the last whorl and the spire of 

 the living or perfect specimen are ciliated near the 

 suture ; but the cilia are easily rubbed off in the dry 

 shell. These variations induced Dr. Turton, in his 

 Dictionary, to divide it into three species. 



The animal is rather rapid in its movements, 

 irritable, comes out of the shell rather obliquely. 

 The tentacles appear like conical protuberances 

 fixed on the muzzle. In their rapid walking they 

 are assisted by the end of the muzzle, like the 

 Cyclostomes, and carry their shell nearly hori- 

 zontally. 



The Conovulus denticulatus feeds on the detritus 

 of marine plants and rotten wood ; and lays twelve or 

 thirteen eggs in the months of June and September, 

 united by a viscid matter into a small mass, which 

 is fixed under the more humid stones. The eggs are 

 globular, yellowish, and quite diaphanous : they are 

 hatched about the fifteenth day, and the animals 

 reach their full size about the end of the second 

 year. They do not hybernate. 



Mr. Lowe doubts the propriety of referring Va- 

 luta denticulata to the genus Melampus, because he 

 thinks that it has a periostracum, which, he believes, 

 the other wants ; but the fact is, they all have it, 

 and in this species it is only rather thicker than in 

 the others. (Zool. Journ. iv. 291.) 



Montagu (Test. Brit.) and Miller (Ann. Phil. iii. 

 777.) truly describe the apex of the shell as being 

 destitute of any septa. 



