6 CONID.E. 



which in these mollnsks is long, and armed with two ranges of 

 sharp pointed teeth. 



" The Cones become more numerous and varied in their colors, 

 as we approach the equatorial seas, and they form bright and 

 beautiful ornaments to the shores of tropical islands. They seem 

 to prefer obscure holes in the rocks', where they lead a predatory 

 life, boring into the substance of the shells of other mollnsks, 

 for the purpose of sucking the juice from their bodies. They 

 crawl but slowly, and usually with their tentacles extended in a 

 straight line before them. They are very timid, and shrink within 

 their shells quickly on the approach of danger. Some affect 

 deep water, and one was dredged by us in the Sunda Straits, in 

 thirty fathoms; and another, the Conns Thalassiarchus, at 

 Sooloo, in about forty fathoms." 



" The proboscis in its retracted state, as seen in the animal 

 preserved in spirits, is short, broad, conical, annulate, prominent, 

 in the base of the tubular veil, with a roundish, central mouth. 

 Instead of having any elongated lingual band covered with short 

 transparent teeth, like the rest of the Proboseidifera and Ros- 

 trii'era, it has a fleshy tube with a bundle of subulate barbed 

 teeth directed towards the mouth ; this tube is prolonged behind 

 and below at right-angles with its upper part and mouth into an 

 elongated, fleshy, attenuated subulate tube, containing with its 

 hinder edge two series of similar subulate red barbed teeth, 

 directed from the aperture towards the apex of the tube. (A 

 single tooth, greatly magnified, of C. Hebrseus, Linn., is repre- 

 sented in Structural and Systematic Conchology, t. 10, f. 5.) 



" The teeth are implanted by a distinct root into the substance 

 of the tube ; those near the upper or oral part of the tube are 

 placed rather irregularly in two parallel rows, but those nearer 

 the tip are more crowded, and the lines gradually diverge from 

 each other. 



' I shall not attempt to describe the manner in which these 

 teeth are brought into action, as I have only seen them in the 

 preserved specimen ; but those nearest the mouth are probably 

 used to pierce the animal, which is held fast by the contraction 

 of the veil, as described by Adaus:>n. The organization and 

 structure of the mouth is so unlike that of the other Probosci- 

 difera and Kos'.rifera. where the teeth are placed on a lingual 



