113 

 NOTES ON THREE SPECIES OF CYPR^A. 



By J. KIDSON TAYLOR. 



(Read before the Society, February 12th, 1913). 



My intention in writing this paper is to endeavour to shew that the 

 three following forms — Cyprcea petitiann Crosse & Fischer, C. nebiilosa 

 Kiener and C. certiica Sowerby — are all entitled to specific rank, and 

 are not to be, as now, merely regarded as varietal forms of other well- 

 known species. 



C. petitiana Crosse & Fischer. — 



This shell has been generally misunderstood, partly from its rarity 

 in collections, and more so from the absence of examples in a fully 

 adult state, and so it has been frequently, if not alwa)'s, thought to be 

 a variety or growth form of C. pyntm Gmelin. This, I am absolutely 

 convinced, cannot be the case, as I have recently acquired a fully 

 adult specimen in the finest possible condition. 



Tills shell differs materially from C. pyrnm in its most salient char- 

 acters ; its only similarity — and that a superficial one — being the 

 painting and colour of the dorsal region ; in every other respect it has 

 no resemblance whatever to C. pyrum. 



In C. petitiana the shell is ovate, slightly pyriform, with the extremi- 

 ties subrostrate, while in C. pyrum it is oblong-ovate, decidedly 

 pyriform and ventricose ; the extremities very much produced, espe- 

 cially the anterior end, where the shell is distinctly attenuated and 

 narrowed, giving it a pinched-in appearance. The colour of the back 

 of the shell is practically similar in both species, a yellowish-chestnut, 

 spotted with white and freckled and blotched with darker fuscous 

 markings, with the addition in C /j'r//w ■ that the back is distinctly 

 banded with a darker colour, alternated generally with narrow whitish 

 zones. In C. petitia?ia the lateral margins and extremities are broadly 

 flesh-coloured, with the base of a slightly deeper tint, teeth whitish ; 

 but in C. pyrum the base, lateral margins, and extremities are of a 

 brilliant orange-brown, lighter when immature, but never of the pale 

 flesh colour which prevails in C. petitiana ; the teeth are whitish, 

 interstices sometimes rosy. The aperture of C. petitiana is narrow 

 and slightly sinuous ; the teeth of the outer lip number i8, of the 

 columellar lip i6. In C. pyru?n the aperture is rather narrow, arc- 

 uated above, subdilated below, roundly margined at each end, the 

 outer lip extended above, with from i6 — 22 teeth ; columellar lip 

 inside nearly smooth, teeth 14 — 16, thickish, rather wide apart at the 

 anterior extremity, the others short, linear, not elongated inside. 



Hidalgo, in his recently published and important work on the 

 Genus Cyprcea. has the following remarks on this species :— 



H 



