1882.] MOLLUSCAN FAUNA OF MADAGASCAR. 383 



paler towards the apex, where the epidermis is mostly worn off, 

 leaving a white surface ; last whorl indistinctly transversely zoned 

 and lineated with dark brown. Volutions 7, rather convex, regu- 

 larly increasing, longitudinally striated by the lines of growth, which 

 are more or less puckered beneath the suture, and at times some- 

 what wrinkled through being crossed by a few obsolete transverse 

 strife. The extreme upper edge of the whorls is yellow at the 

 suture. Body-whorl scarcely descending in front. Aperture in- 

 versely auriform, blue within, occupying three eighths of the entire 

 length of the shell. Outer hp thickened within, dirty whitish. 

 Inner lip of the same colour, thickened also, narrowly expanded 

 in the umbilical region, joined to the labrum above by a thin callus. 



Length 53 miUim., width 21 ; aperture 20 long, lU broad. 



Hab. Near the river Anonive, about fifty miles south of the 

 capital, Antananarivo (TF. Johnson). 



This species might be regarded by some as a dwarf form of ^S". 

 eximia, Shuttleworth ; but, besides size, there are other distinctions. 

 Mr. Johnson says he never could find the larger species at the above 

 locality, nor did he ever meet with the smaller one in company with 

 it elsewhere. As the last whorl in the present species scarcely 

 descends at all, the suture is less oblique than in S. eximia ; the 

 surface is less puckered by transverse strise, the breadth of the shell 

 is greater in proportion to its length, the last whorl is less cylin- 

 drical, the columella is not so broadly reflexed or flattened in front, 

 and the aperture is narrower at the base. 



Melanatria JOHNSON I, sp. uov. (Plate XXII. figs. 6, 7.) 



Shell large, elongate-pyramidal, turreted, thick, covered with an 

 olive epidermis, closely lineated or strigate with longitudinal lines of 

 a darker tint. Whorls — ?, the remaining nine excavated at the 

 upper part, very slightly convex beneath, strongly spirally ribbed 

 and grooved. The ribs are six in number on the upper whorls and 

 rounded ; the two above are much more slender than the four 

 beneath ; the uppermost borders the suture ; the next lies in the 

 concavity at the top of the whorls ; and the rest surround the slight 

 convexity, and are three times as broad as the sulci separating them. 

 All the whorls, with the exception of the last four, are coronated 

 at the slight angle below the excavation with very short, hollow, 

 oblique spinules; and some of the spiral grooves exhibit rows of fine 

 granules. The last whorl descends somewhat, giving the shell a 

 slightly distorted appearance ; it is girded with about twelve trans- 

 verse costse, a few at the base being smaller than five principal ones 

 around the middle. The aperture is bluish within, faintly stained 

 with olive-brown near the margins. Peristome widely and deeply 

 sinuated on the outer lip in the concavity of the whorl, arcuate and 

 prominent in the middle, then shallowly sinuated again {vide fig. 7). 

 Colnmellar margin thickened, free, arcuate, reflexed, ending in a 

 distinct basal sinus. 



Length 78 millim., diam. 24 ; aperture 24 across diagonally, and 

 16 in a transverse direction. 



Proc. Zool. Soc— 1882, No. XXVI. 26 



