196 DENTALIID^E. 



The present species does not generally attain the 

 same size as the last, although I received from Lady 

 Wilkinson a specimen two finches long and only half- 

 grown, which she picked up on the sands in Oxwich Bay. 

 The shell differs from D. entails in being shorter, 

 broader, thicker, not glossy, and having distinct and regu- 

 lar striae ; in the posterior end being abruptly cut off, and 

 the terminal pipe being round with a circular orifice, and 

 in never having any notch or slit ; it is also sometimes 

 of a pinkish hue at the point. In the adult the striae 

 cover the whole surface, and not merely the narrower 

 part ; in the young these are fine ribs. 



Lister first noticed this shell as British, from Barn- 

 staple Bay. Da Costa described and figured it as D. 

 vulgare, a name which ought in justice to be preferred, 

 because that given by Lamarck was not only long sub- 

 sequent in point of date, but unsupported by a proper 

 description. He says D. Tarentinum is slender, some- 

 what curved, and smooth, with a reddish base. How- 

 ever, I suppose we must accept the proposition made by 

 the late Mr. G. B. Sowerby in the 'Zoological Journal ' 

 for 1829, and use the latter name as the one best 

 known to conchologists. It is not the D. dentalis of 

 Linne, as supposed by Montagu and his followers. 

 The young is the D. striatum of the last-named author, 

 although not of his predecessor, Born. In a worn state 

 it is Turton's D. labiatum, and D. politum, afterwards 

 changed to D. lave. 



The collection of Mr. J. D. Humphreys contains a 

 specimen of D. dentalis, from Bantry, mixed with the last 

 species. D. dentalis is common on the western shores of 

 France, from the mouth of the Loire southwards, as well 

 as in Portugal and Spain, the Mediterranean, Adriatic, 

 ^Egean, Madeira, and Canary Isles. Fossil in the 



