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DESCRIPTIONS OF TWENTY-ONE SPECIES OP TURRID^ (PLEU- 

 ROTOMID^) FROM VARIOUS LOCALITIES IN THE COLLECTION 

 OF MR. E. R. SYKES. 



By James Cosmo Melvill, M.A., D.Sc. 



Read 8th December, 1922. 



PLATES IV AND V. 



Some time ago I was asked by Mr. Sykes to take in liand a number 

 of unnamed and, in some cases, critical species of Turridae, which 

 he, as opportunity offered, had obtained from various sources. 

 Fortunately, in every case the locality had been registered, and as 

 regards the majority of them they had been closely examined, so 

 far as comparison with the vast series of the British Museum (Nat. 

 Hist.) was concerned, by himself in company with the late 

 Mr. Edgar Smith. The Eastern Turridae are particularly well repre- 

 sented there. The occidental tropical species, mostly from Cuba, 

 have been, at our request, very kindly looked over by Dr. W. H. 

 Dall, and also Mr. J. B. Henderson, to both of whom we are greatly 

 indebted. About six of those forwarded were found to have been 

 described, some quite recently, and the remainder were passed as 

 new to science. We are enabled, therefore, to offer at the present 

 opportunity descriptions of twenty-one species, a large proportion of 

 these belonging to a genus Drillia, now being divided into sections, 

 as is indeed necessary, but of which I am not prepared at present 

 to grasp the full details. Accordingly, in this paper I fall back upon 

 the old classification as given in Tryon's Manual of Conchology, 

 vol. vi, 1884. 



TuRRis RUTHVENiANA, n.sp. (PL IV, Fig. 2.) 



Shell fusiform, thick ; whorls, especially the upper, somewhat 

 compressed, being ten in number, inclusive of the two apical. 

 Colour bright chestnut brown, with squarrose, fairly regular, white 

 tessellations on the spiral carinae. These revolving keels appertain 

 throughout — one, in particular, central, and subdivided by a shallow 

 sulcus ; the lesser tornate keels increase numerically in each of the 

 lower whorls, till, on the body-whorl, they total five or six, all 

 beautifully variegated with white and chestnut alternately, as 

 mentioned above. Mouth ovate-oblong, canal wide, abbreviate, 

 sinus well expressed, wide, and deep, columellar margin fairly 

 straight. 



Long. 41 "5, lat. 14 mm. 



Hah. — Mauritius. 



A handsome species, standing somewhat alone, and conspicuous 

 for its bright coloration and tessellated carinal ornamentation. 

 (Named after Mr. E. Kuthven Sykes, in whose collection is the type.) 



