bo 
io) 
MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 
SCAPHOPODA. 
Dentalium solidum VeRrRiL-. 
VerRILL, Trans. Conn. Acad., VI. p. 215, 1884, pl. 44, figs. 16, 17, 1885. 
Three living specimens, Station 305, east of George’s Bank, in 810 fath- 
oms. Eight dead (seven young), Station 307, east of George’s Bank, in 980 
fathoms. One living and ten dead, Station 308, east of George’s Bank, in 
1,242 fathoms. One young, dead, Station 325, off Cape Fear, N.C., in 647 
fathoms. One living, Station 331, off Cape Hatteras, N.C., in 898 fathoms. 
Three living, Station 338, off Delaware Bay, in 922 fathoms. Four living and 
one dead, Station 339, off Delaware Bay, in 1,186 fathoms. One dead, Sta- 
tion 341, south of Martha’s Vineyard, in 1,241 fathoms. Four living and one 
dead, Station 342, south of Martha’s Vineyard, in 1,002 fathoms. 
A common deep-water species first found by the U.S. F.C. in 1883, ran- 
ging from east of George’s Bank to off Cape Hatteras, N. C., in 662 to 1,825 
fathoms. Mr. Dall also records it from off the coast of Brazil, in 1,019 fathoms, 
dead. 
It is with considerable hesitation that I retain the name solidwm for this 
species, as Mr. Dall states,! with much positiveness, that our species is identical 
with Mr. Jeffreys’s types of Dentalium candidum. But the descriptions and 
figures of the two species are so markedly different in their principal characters, 
that I cannot accept the identification without question. 
Our specimens are large (about 3 inches long), robust, thick, and strong, with 
numerous, very distinct lines of growth, and, toward the posterior half, with 
marked, but shallow, longitudinal striations, or small impressed grooves, sepa- 
rated by slightly convex spaces, varying in width, and have the anterior aper- 
ture large, circular, moderately oblique, with plain, thin, sharp edge, and the 
posterior one small, pear-shaped, with a rather deep notch on the dorsal side, 
and a shallower, more rounded one beneath (all of which characters seem to be 
constant even in the perfect young). If specimens labelled D. candidum in 
the Jeffreys collection are like these, I do not see how they can agree with 
the description given by Mr. Jeffreys in Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., p. 153, 1877, 
or with the figure in Proc. Zodl. Soc., London, pl. 49, fig. 2, 1882, which 
agrees well with the description, especially in the character of the longitudinal 
sculpture. Mr. Jeffreys states that his species is thin, opaque, about 1.75 inches 
long, with about forty fine and regular rounded longitudinal striz (I should 
judge from the figure that he must have meant threads or ribs) disappearing 
towards the front margin, crossed by extremely numerous microscopic circular 
lines. The anterior end broad and jagged; the posterior abruptly truncated, 
without notch, groove, slit, or channel. 
1 Dentalium candidum Dall, this Bulletin, X VIII. p. 422, 1889; Proc. U. S. Nat. 
Mus., XII. p. 294, 1889. 
