4G2 On Comis (Cylinder) clytosplra, si^. n. 



The spive, liowever, is the most distinguishing charac- 

 teristic, measuring" as it does ■^S millim., or about 1| inch, 

 longitudinally, in our largest example, and possessing sixteen 

 •whorls, the upper white, more angled, with minute whits 

 gemmuled nodules, the lower seven gradate, channelled and 

 grooved, angled, and fairly straight. The spire of C.gloria- 

 ma7-ts, Chemn., in the collection of one of us, is but tvvelve- 

 whorled, not so conspicuously gradate, with no sign of the 

 iioduled angle in the ccntie of the Uj)per whorls. C. pyra- 

 midab's, Lam., seems the only other species with an elevated 

 spire at all possessing similar characteristics, though smooth 

 throughout. 



In the " Notes on the Subgenus Cylinder of Conus, 

 1886-7'^*, thirty-nine forms in all were enumerated by 

 Melvill, to which one, besides the present shell under 

 discussion, viz. G. Frevostianus, Sowb., has to be added. 

 ']"he C. dytospira seems to us to fall, despite the similarity in 

 marking to G. episcopus, into the third section '* Pyrami- 

 dalia^'' of Coni textiles veri^ in company with G. gloria-maris, 

 Chemn., and C. pyiamidcdis, Lam., and also perhaps 

 G. legatus, Lam. 



It may be interesting here to quote some remarks of 

 Mr. F.W. Townscnd'son the subject under date Septeuiber 14, 

 1899:— 



" The cable of the E;istern Telegraph Company laid in 

 1870 required overhauling, and a new piece, about 13 miles 

 in lengtl), being .substituted ; and we [Indo-European Tele- 

 graph Co.] were asked to undertake this work for them. Of 

 course we had to take up so much of the old cable as we 

 could get. We recovered, I think, about ten miles of it, and 

 an enormous quantity of shells came up with it. They were 

 all dead, but several were in a very good state of preserva- 

 tion. They are for the most part cones, and came up quite 

 imbedded in the outer covering of the cable, a coat of pitch 

 compound on jute yarn. The only theory I can assume for 

 there being so many of them is that in their living state they 

 got caught by the pitch on coming across the cable, and were 

 thus poisoned. This cable, I may state, had not been touched 

 for nearly thirty years ; it was laid on a coarse sandy bottom 

 with occasional patches of rock, and, excepting where the 

 rock occurred, came uj) almost as clean as the day it was 

 laid. De[)th, say, 45 fathoms. 



" The huge cone will, I hope, prove to be undescribed. I 

 know nothing like it in form excepting G. gloria-maris^ and 



* Mem. !Mancli. Lit. v^ Phil. Soc. series iii. vol. x. p. 76. 



