116 LIMACINID.E. 



Habitat : Everywhere along our coasts, in drifted 

 and dredged sand, particularly the latter. The two 

 varieties insensibly diverge from the typical form ; but 

 it is impossible to make out any specific difterence, if a 

 sufficient number of specimens are compared. That 

 from which Forbes and Hanley's description of ;S^. Jef- 

 freysii was taken is a very young shell. Pliocene and 

 quaternary strata in Calabria and Sicily (Philippi and 

 Seguenza, as Scaea stenogyra of the former, and Spiria- 

 lis globulosa of the latter, corresponding with the 

 varieties Macandrece and Jejfreysi) ; newer or post- 

 glacial deposits in the Christiania district (Sars, Cross- 

 key and Robertson). North Atlantic, 170-550 f. (Dr. 

 W. B. Carpenter and Prof. Wj^ille Thomson); Scandi- 

 navian coasts (Loven and others) ; mid- Atlantic (Wal- 

 lich) ; Gulf of Naples (Tiberi) ; Canaries (M'Andrew) ; 

 New England (Stimpson, as S. Gouldii) ; Nahant, U. S. 

 (A. Agassiz) ; " toutes les mers''^ (Rang and Souleyet, 

 as Limacina naticoides of Rang, and S. trochiformis of 

 Souleyet). My supposed specimen from Piedmont is 

 the embryonic shell of a Nudibranch. 



This common and widely distributed species has not 

 often been taken alive in our seas. Prof. E. Forbes 

 observed it on the north-west coast of Skye in 1850; 

 and the Rev. A. M. Norman, during our Shetland 

 dredging-cruises in 1861 and 1867, caught great num- 

 bers, of diflPerent ages from the fry to the adult, in the 

 towing-net, as well as in his hand-net close to the shore. 

 The animal, when placed in a bottle of sea-water, did 

 not flutter like a butterfly, but rose straight upwards to 

 the surface in regular jerks, and then dropped gently 

 to the bottom, as if exhausted by the exertion. This 

 alternate action was repeated several times. Mr. A. 

 Agassiz says (Proc. Boston Soc. N. H. 1865) that "they 



