96 CHKJOREUS. 



elevated. ' The color is yellowish to dark brown, and the smaller 

 striae are usually colored in bands of a chocolate color. Within 

 the aperture, generally white, sometimes chocolate. When the 

 shell becomes adult, and especially in West Indian specimens, it 

 takes the form described by Lamarck as M. brevifrons (fig. 172)" 

 The spines are then thicker, shorter, not so frondose, the two 

 ribs generally run into a single, large one, and the shell is very 

 thick and heavy. Mr. Krebs * states that he has collected speci- 

 mens taken out of the eggs and in every stage of growth there- 

 after, and that they fully prove the identity of M. calcitrapa, M. 

 brevifrons and M. purpuratus (fig. 173). " It is proper to 

 remark that some specimens have one and others have two 

 nodules between each varix, although taken out of one cluster of 

 eggs, but all the old and full-grown specimens have only one 

 nodule, some with a very faint indication of a second ; young 

 specimens have no sculpture before the fourth or fifth whorl." 

 Egg-clusters deposited on blue mud in smooth water, 10 or 12 

 feet below the surface. 



Red Sea, Ind. 0., China, Brazil, Wext Indies. 



The West Indies is certainly the metropolis of this species, 

 and I cannot help thinking that possibly the eastern localities 

 have arisen from error, either directly or by identifying with this 

 species shells which belong to other species, as axicornin, Banksii, 

 etc. M. elonyatus, Lam., as elaborated in the second edition of 

 the Anim. sans Vert, by Deshayes, includes references to ancient 

 figures which represent our American species as well as exotic, 

 but I follow Sowerby in restricting it to an East Indian form 

 with tooth on lower part of lip, and more nearly allied to M. 

 ramosus. M. ptirpuratus, Reeve, is a light-textured specimen 

 of the adult (= brevifrons) ; I have similar specimens. M. 

 florifer. Reeve (fig. 180), from Honduras, is a rather stout, 

 young shell. M. crassivaricosus, Reeve (fig. 179), is a still 

 younger state. A somewhat longer, narrower form, darker in 

 color, is the shell figured by Reeve as M. elonyatus (fig. 171) 

 ( approximatus, Sowb.), and to this form we may add the 

 abused specimen which Bernardi has called M. Toupiollei (fig. 

 186). 



* "The West Indian Marine Shells," 1864. 



