BUCCINUM. 



293 



Landor's verses express a similar idea as entertained 

 by children of a larger growth. In the 30th Problem 

 of Buonanni will be found a satisfactory explanation of 

 this phenomenon, on acoustic principles. 



It is the B. vulgare of Da Costa, B. porcatum of 

 Gmelin, and B. Labradorense of Reeve. The Tritonium 

 undatum of Fabricius is B. Grcenlandicum. 



H*. *3 2. B. HUMPHREYSIA'NTJM*, Bennett. 



B. Humphreysianum, Benn. in Zool. Journ. i. p. 298, pi. xxx. (upper 

 figures) ; P. & H. iii. p. 410, pi. ex. f. 1. 



BODY whitish or yellowish-white, speckled with black: 

 pallial tube cylindrical: tentacles conical, contractile and 

 therefore varying in length, widely diverging, and separated 

 by an intermediate membrane : eyes on short stalks or 

 protuberances: foot broadly lanceolate, rounded or slightly 

 bilobed in front, with a small triangular process at each cor- 

 ner, bluntly pointed behind. 



SHELL of a more regularly oval shape than B. undatum, 

 thin, but nearly opaque, somewhat glossy : sculpture, numerous 

 and delicate, wavy, spiral impressed lines or striae, visible 

 only with a magnifying glass ; the surface is also covered with 

 still finer, slighter, and much more numerous longitudinal 

 striae, which require a stronger power to observe them ; no 

 distinct reticulation is produced, but the interstices of the 

 spiral striae are microscopically punctured : colour yellowish 

 or whitish, mottled with fawn or reddish-brown, or irregularly 

 banded with rows of spots or chain-like markings of the last 

 colour : epidermis none : spire rather short, regularly tapering ; 

 apex blunt and depressed : whorls 7-8, rounded and convex ; 

 the last occupies more than three-fourths of the shell : suture 

 deep : mouth forming an obtuse angle on the inner or colu- 

 mellar side, contracted above into an acute angle, and expand- 

 ing outwards with a curved outline ; length about five -ninths 

 that of the spire: canal wide, open, and deep, exhibiting 

 outside a corresponding notch : outer lip semicircular, flexuous, 

 scarcely sinuated in the middle, sloping outwards from the 



* Named in honour of the late Mr. J. D. Humphreys, a conchologist 

 at Cork. 



