96 CHICOREUS. 



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. breri.fn>n* (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. .calfitrapa, M. 

 brevifrons and M. purpuratus (fig. 173). u 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 pr fifth whorl." 

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

 feet below the surface. 



Bed Sea, 2nd. 0., China, Brazil, West Indie*. 



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 axicornis, Bank&ii, 

 etc. M. elongatus, 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. purpuratus, Reeve, is a light-textured specimen 

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

 ftorifer, 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. elongatus (fig. 171) 

 (= approximate , 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. 



