and. Shells of Massachusetts Bay. 103 
TURRITELLA EROSA. 
Plate III. fig. 1. 
T. testa turrità, fusco-rufescente, apice acuto, anfractibus sub-con- 
vexis, transversé suleatis ; aperturà orbiculatà, labro tenui, — -cren- 
ulato ; columella leviter callosà, epidermide viridi-corneà. 
Long. sixteen EN ER USD, basal Tek six twentieths 
of an inch. 
Hab. waters of Mass. Bay—coast of Maine. 
My own collection. 
Cabinet of Boston Soc. Nat. History. 
Description. Shell turreted, with from nine ‘to eleven 
slightly convex whorls, tapering gradually to a point ; 
sutures deeply impressed ; whorls having from three to 
five transverse sulci, with alternate, slightly elevated, 
rounded strie or coste, most numerous and strongly 
marked upon the lower whorl ; strie of growth apparent, 
slightly wrinkling the shell longitudinally ; the portion 
above the last three whorls usually much eroded ; aper- 
ture rounded, lip thin and impressed by the termination 
of the coste ; columella with a very slight callus, hav- 
ing an angular base; color of the shell a reddish brown, 
sometimes dark lilac ; epidermis thin, of a greenish horn 
color. 
Osservations. Nearly a dozen specimens of this 
shell have been found, at various times, in the maws of 
fishes caught in different parts of our Bay, all of them 
inhabited by the ubiquious hermit crab, who seems to be 
a sort of tenant-at-will of all the shells found upon our 
coast. I am not acquainted with any species which might 
be mistaken for this. ‘There is certainly none upon our 
own coast, and neither Brown nor Montague, in their 
