468 PELOEIM;. 



L. PERSPICUA, Linnaeus. 



L. perspicua, Brit.Moll. iii. p. 355, pl.99. f. 8, 9 ; (animal) pi. P.P. f.l . 

 Sigaretus perspicuus, Cuvier et Auct. 

 Coriocella perspicua. Blainville. 

 Eulla haliotoidea, Mont, et aliorum. 



Animal suboval, covered by a strong coriaceous mantle 

 extending on all sides beyond the foot and body, with the 

 margins plain and united, except in front, where there is a 

 short, but decided branchial fold or canal to admit the water ; 

 the inner surface is marked with radiating white lines and 

 flaky spots ; the outer one is variable in different individuals, 

 being often studded with bright orange or citron papillose 

 spots, and in other cases with brown or red-brown ones. Under 

 the skin, about the centre of the upper surface, is imbedded a 

 white, subopake, semispiral, ear-shaped shell, which protects 

 the branchial plume and some of the viscera. The head is a 

 flat, smooth, very inconspicuous projection, with a subrotund 

 orifice beneath, from whence the short retractile proboscis is 

 exserted ; at a little distance within it are two fleshy lobes 

 supporting very thin, pale corneous plates, between which a 

 long, flat, spiny tongue springs, which on leaving the palate 

 forms three coils on the top of the back of the head, and is 

 then continued to the stomach. These remarks, the result of 

 various dissections, lead me to observe, that this short pro- 

 boscis, though retractile, is not strictly of the usual Muricidal 

 form, as in that tribe the tongue is rarely coiled ; it is, how- 

 ever, thus contorted in our Murex lapillus (Purpura auctorum), 

 an indisputable Muricidal animal. But in this creature, the 

 most anomalous of our five genera, there are a host of cha- 

 racters to prove its close connection with the Canaliferous 

 tribes ; it is as far from Eulla , the conchologist's usual depo- 

 sitary for animals of this sort of aspect, as the poles are from 

 each other. Its entire, coriaceous, unreflected mantle has the 

 decided branchial canal of many of the Murices, and M. Cuvier 

 considers it the equivalent of the muricidal shell ; that great 

 naturalist, in the anatomy of this animal, thus sums up : "En 

 un mot, pour faire du Sigaret un Buccin, il suffirait que les 

 tours de sa coquille moins inegaux, se prolongeassent en une 



