l88 JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY, VOL. I3, NO. 6, APRIL, I9II. 



When Gwyn Jeffreys described this species it was rare and im- 

 perfectly known, so that he was unable to give many particulars 

 concerning it, while some of those he did give are not borne out by 

 further research. The shape and colour particularly have to be 

 qualified. Instead of being "an elongated pyramid with a broadish 

 base," that applies to only about ten per cent, of the specimens ; the 

 great majority are cylindrical or tubular, similar to his figure, and 

 exhibit no difference in outline from that of C. tuberciilaris, which 

 he describes as " cylindio-pyramidal," and which applies quite as 

 well to one species as the other. Sowerby's supplementary figure 

 is from a pyramidal specimen, and would answer for Jeffreys' type in 

 that respect, but it is coloured dark brown, while the author described 

 his shell as "pale yellowish white." At the same time, it may be stated 

 that there are specimens quite as dark as any C. tuberailaris. The 

 Rev. R. Boog Watson gives an excellent figure of the conical form,^ 

 presumably from Madeira, but no habitat is given and no colour 

 mentioned. 



Having examined many hundreds of specimens, I know of few- 

 species so closely allied as this and the last. It is impossible to 

 separate them by the form alone, and any attempt to do so fails ; two 

 specimens perfectly alike may be placed side by side and taken for 

 one species, when one would be found with a keeled and convex 

 base, the other plain and slightly concave, and these seem, with the 

 embryo, to be the only permanent and reliable characters between 

 the two species. It is true the bulk of C. barleei are paler than 

 C. tubercidaris, but in this they only resemble the var. albescens of 

 the latter. The apical whorls of this species are four, sometimes five 

 in number, the upper two or three being smooth, and the next two 

 striated longitudinally and more or less keeled. Gwyn Jeffreys' 

 statement that it is "finely and closely striated in the direction of 

 the spire" is ambiguous ; if by this is meant spiral, it is incorrect. 

 The circumbasal keel in the two species is occasionally beaded, thus 

 making an incipient fourth row of nodules on the last whorl ; but the 

 circumcolumnar keel, which winds round the canal, is present only 

 in adult C. tubercularis ; immature specimens rarely possess it, and 

 as this is the principal specific character, and the two forms when 

 immature are both pyramidal in shape, they cannot m that stage be 

 separated when they are both of the same colour, except by the 

 embryo, which in C. tiibercularis is smooth. The colour ranges 

 from pure white through every shade of yellowish white and pale 

 brown to dark brown; in some cases they are bicoloured. Some of 

 the specimens from the Channel and Scilly Islands are of a rich ruby 



I Ceritliiopsides from the N. Atlantic, Journ. Linii. Soc, 1SS5, vol. xix., pi. 4. 



