the Lingual Dentition in the Gasteropoda. 



243 



Bullia and Phos are, in all probability, also members of this 

 family ; but only those genera or, more critically, those species 

 have been introduced whose Buccinoid character has been de- 

 termined by their lingual dentition, either actually figured or 

 satisfactorily described. The list already includes some of the 

 principal genera, and will, no doubt, be soon very considerably 

 augmented when the information and research of other natu- 

 ralists is brought to bear upon it in the manner above indi- 

 cated. 



MURICIDJE. 



Lingual dentition triserial, the distinctive feature of which is 

 having strongly curved simple acuminate teeth in the pleuras ; 

 and the origins of the central teeth are usually in bold relief 

 upon the basal plates. 



The present state of the two families to which I have con- 

 fined my attention in this paper shows the utter impossibility 

 of classifying the Gasteropoda by the purely conchological 

 method of comparing shell with shell, independently of the 

 light which we now know may be derived from the dental 

 characters. On applying to the systems of Gray, Woodward, 

 and Adams the plummet of the foregoing lists, it will be 

 found that, though they differ considerably inter se^ they all 



