236 JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY, VOL. 9, NO. 8, OCTOBER, 1899. 



This may possibly be the C. albella of Lamarck. In the Williams 

 and Standen collections are some very beautiful, highly polished, 

 whitish, smoky grey coloured varieties. In that of Miss Saul, which 

 we recently inspected, in the Zoological Museum at Cambridge, there 

 also are a few examples of a very juvenile state of C. caput-serpentis, 

 with a broad transverse brown zone stretching across the dorsal 

 surface. 1 



C. mauritiana L. 



A species not very prone to vary. After inspection of a very large 

 series, we only observe (a) a fine form similar to the var. theriaca of 

 C. paniherina L., the dorsal ornamentation being almost, if not quite, 

 obliterated by a dark chestnut or black-brown suffusion : (b) a semi- 

 pellucid olivaceous horny shell, the dorsal surface, with its usual 

 ornamentation, standing out strikingly against a paler ground, while 

 the basal sculpture is also of the same olive-corneous hue. This 

 colour variety we propose to designate as : — 



Var. calx-equina nov. 



Hab. : Isles of the Pacific. 



To sum up, it will be seen that no change, save one, is necessary in 

 the sequence quoted at the commencement of this paper, and that 

 what might have been considered a rather wide gap, viz. : that between 

 C. caput-serpentis and C. annulus, has been bridged over by the dis- 

 covery of the pure white form of the var. capui-colubri, to which 

 attention has been drawn above. 



[We may note here that our opinion has for some years been in favour 

 of reducing the three Cowries, C. moneta, C. obvallctta, and C. annulus, 

 to forms of one variable species, to which the aggregate name of moneta 

 might be applied. This has, in fact, been lately carried out in the 

 labelling of the series in the British Museum by Mr. Edgar A. Smith. 

 C. icterina Lamk., being universally considered a large, elongate, 

 smooth form of C. moneta, shows a distinct transition to C. annulus, 

 while C. obvallata exhibits the same from a different point of view, 

 since it is connected with the normal tuberculated form of the Money 

 Cowry, the yellow central dorsal linear ring being conspicuous, as in 

 C. annulus, while absent from C. moneta, in all its forms. 



As will be seen by a reference to former remarks on the subject 

 (op. cit. p. 207) these three were only kept separate in the "Catalogue 

 of the Species and Varieties of Cyprcea" for the sake of convenience 

 and on account of long usage. — Note added Sept. 12, 1899]. 



1 Vide Sowerby, " Thes. Conch.," Cypraeidae, pi. 37, fig. 539. 



