Phasianella stylifera. 367 



11. Phasianella stylifera. 



Testa ovata, lutescente-cornea, pellucida^ loevissima : anfractibus 

 5, duobus basalibus ventricosis, tribus apicalibus abrupte 

 minimis : operculum nullum. 



Shell oval, yellowish hom-colour, transparent, quite smooth ; 

 volutions 5, the two lower ones very tumid, the three terminal ones 

 abruptly minute : operculum none. 



Length a line ; breadth not so much. 



We found a dozen of these beautiful little shells alivej and at- 

 tached to the spines of the Echinus esculenius, dredged up in 

 Torbay. The aperture is suborbicular, with the margin disunited 

 at top, and extremely thin : towards the pillar side, the colour be- 

 comes more intensely rufous : and the sudden and extremely 

 minute volume of the three apical volutions, in this respect re- 

 sembling the Valuta bulloides, distinguishes it from all the other 

 minute turbinated shells. 



In endeavouring to apportion the British Catalogue according 

 to the arrangement of Lamarck, it is no very easy matter to fix the 

 genera of many of the smaller turbinated shells, without indulg- 

 ing in a greater latitude of character than that author and his fol- 

 lowers have as yet admitted. Sowerby confines the character to 

 such only as have a calcareous operculum : Lamarck to such as 

 have the operculum either calcareous or horny : to prevent the 

 excessive multiplication of genera, ourselves, for the present, 

 combine with the Phasianella such as otherwise answer to 

 Lamarck's character, whether they have an operculum or not : 

 and such as have the margin of the aperture united all round, we 

 cast into the new genus CinguluSy after Dr. Fleming. 



Icon. tab. xiii. fig. 11. 



Mus.nost. Goodall, Bingham, Lyons. 



