144 



both sides, crowded towards the base, and becoming more 

 discrete on the dorsum. Another also typical in shape with 

 spots at both margins, also sparsely scattered over the 

 dorsum ; but these are nearly obscured by a very fine general 

 brown reticulation, in which are faintly visible four slightly 

 browner cross lines, due to greater thickness of the reticul- 

 lation at these places. 



Ellensbrook beach 16, ranging from 14*5 mm. x 8 x 6*25 

 to 20 mm. x 11 x 8'5, yellowish-brown. These all have 

 transverse rows of square spots on the dorsum forming four 

 interrupted or articulated narrow bands, of which the front 

 one is often obsolete or absent, less frequently the back one 

 is obsolete. Besides these there are many rather large brown 

 dots, most numerous and deeply coloured on the thickened 

 outer lip, numerous but more discrete on the left side of the 

 shell, extending upwards to the centre of the dorsum. These 

 are mostly roundish and irregularly scattered, but some tend 

 to be squarish, and even to run in transverse lines between 

 the bands of squarish spots. Rottnest (Mrs. Simpson) 2, up 

 to 16*25 mm. 



C. pulicaria seems to be the extreme western variant 

 of C. angustata, which is the extreme eastern form, while 

 comptoni and piperita and bicolor are most abundant in the 

 middle southern Australian area. C. angustata is more 

 common in Tasmania than elsewhere, and becomes gradually 

 scarcer to the west, while C. pulicaria is common on the 

 western coast of Western Australia, is rare on its southern 

 coast, becomes very rare further east, and disappears beyond 

 Kangaroo Island. Shaw says C. pulicaria, "on account of 

 its narrower and more elongate form and finer teeth, should 

 be regarded as a good species, and not a variety of C. 

 angustata ." But in well-marked C. pulicaria the teeth vary 

 from 22 to 30 in shells of the same size, and in well-marked 

 C. ang ustata-comptoni they may be just as numerous and as 

 fine, and the shape may be as narrow and long in the latter 

 as in the former. The colour ornament in typically shaped 

 C. pulicaria also varies from uniform white through all 

 gradations of the flea-bitten dots, and through the articu- 

 lated bands and very fine pepperings and fine reticulations 

 into piperita and bicolor, and so through comptoni into 

 declivis and angustata. 



Cypraea friendii, Gray 



Cypraea friendii, Gray: Zool. Miscol., 1831, vol. viii., p. 29; 

 Gray: Descrip. Cat. of Shells, Cyp., 1832, p. 5, No. 32; Menke : 

 Moll. Nov.-Holl., 1843, p. 29; Stiaw : Proc. Mai. Journ. Lond., 

 1909, vol. viii., p. 303; Hedlev : Journ. Rov. Soc. W. Austr., 

 vol. i., 1916, p. 199. 



