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 
strie. 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 lip 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 millim., width 21 ; aperture 20 long, 113 broad. 
Hab. Near the river Anonive, about fifty miles south of the 
capital, Antananarivo (W. 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. evimia; the 
surface is less puckered by transverse striz, 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 JOHNSONI, sp. nov. (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 costee, 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). 
Columellar 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. Zoor. Soc.—1882, No. XXVI. 26 
