102 BULLETIN OF THE 



NOTES. 



Before passing to the Acephala and Brachiopoda it may be well to note that 

 in the preceding descriptions the apex or nucleus is considered the posterior 

 end of the shell, and in dextral shells the free margin as the right-hand side 

 of the shell ; such lines or sculpture as pass along the whorls are spiral or 

 longitudinal ; such as pass across the whorls are transverse. 



Dr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys has kindly pointed out to me that the name maculata 

 is preoccupied in the genus Margarita for a fossil species by Wood. The 

 species described by that name on page 43 will therefore take the name of 

 Margarita lacunella. 



Dr. Jeffreys has also forwarded to me some specimens of the shell described 

 under the name of Margarita (?) euspira (page 44), but which are destitute of 

 the sutural band, forming a variety which may take the name of nitens (Jef- 

 freys). The genus of this peculiar little shell remains in doubt. It presents 

 some characters in common with Margarita and some with Photinula. In 

 nearly adult specimens the pillar is broad, flattened, and granulated minutely 

 with a polished small tubercle at its end, which later becomes enlarged, and 

 forms a blunt tooth, or prominent rounded tubercle, which also is rough or 

 granulated on the surface (which at first, with only a few specimens for com- 

 parison, lad me to the supposition that it was due to fracture), and is shown 

 by the additional material of Dr. Jeffreys to be a normal feature unlike any- 

 thing I find described. If it be considered desirable to separate it on this 

 ground (and it certainly cannot remain with typical Margarita or be referred 

 to Photinula or Ozystele as strictly defined), it might take the name of Bathxj- 

 iwphila, and for the present be considered as a subgenus of Margarita, which 

 genus it resembles entirely when immature, being then widely umbilicate and 

 with no callus. 



Professor Verrill has called my attention to the fact that the species described 

 as Pleurotoma (Bela) limacina (page 55), also obtained by the U. S. Fish Com- 

 mission in deep water <>1F Newport, R. I., has no operculum, and hence is prob- 

 ably not a Bela. None of my specimens retained the animal. An examination 

 of a specimen in spirits kindly lent by him confirms this view, and for the 

 present the species were perhaps better referred to DapluuUa. The family 

 divisions of Gray, Adams, and others, based on the characters of the operculum, 

 in the light of later researches cannot be maintained. I have elsewhere shown 

 that in Buccinum oyanmm about five per cent have no traces of an operculum, 

 while Friele has described a Neptunea or Chryaodomiu with a subspira] opercu- 

 lum (Mnhnia alha). In the Toxifera it is highly probable that the operculum 

 has at most a generic value. 



