Maryland Geological Survey 433 



Family MITRIDAE 



Genus VULPECULA Blainville 

 [Diet. Sci. Nat., tome xxxi, 1824, p. 106] 



Type. — Voluta vulpecula Linne. 



" Animal tout-a-fait inconnu, coquille allongee, f usif orme ; l'overture 

 etroite, prolongee en une sorte de canal, le bord columellaire plisse; le bord 

 droit avec un pli anguleux vers le tiers posterieur de sa longueur." — Blain- 

 ville, 1824. 



Turricula, tbe name under which these slender, fusiform Mitridae are 

 most commonly cited, was proposed in 1753 by Klein, who was not a 

 binomial writer. Shumacher applied it in 1817 to a pleurotomid, prob- 

 ably the Surcula of H. and A. Adams, and thus preoccupied the name for 

 a group entirely distinct from that with which it is commonly associated. 

 De Montfort recognized the so-called Minaret shells as a distinct genus in 

 1810, selected as his type Voluta vulpecula Linne, but gave to the group 

 the name Turris, already preoccupied by Bolten. Blainville accepted the 

 diagnosis and type of de Montfort but substituted for Turris the specific 

 name of the type. 



Vulpecula reileyi (Whitfield) 



Turricula reileyi Whitfield, 1892, Mon. U. S. Geol. Survey, vol. xviii, p. 92, 



pi. xi, fig. 8. 

 Turricula reileyi Weller, 1907, Geol. Survey of New Jersey, Pal., vol. iv, p. 



791, pi. xcvii, fig. 10. 



Description. — " Shell slender, extremely elongated, turreted ; spire very 

 much elevated and slender ; whorls numerous, slightly convex on the sur- 

 face and very distinctly banded on their lower margin ; body volution pro- 

 portionally more convex than the others, being swollen near the middle 

 of its length ; attenuate and rostrate below, and nearly or quite one-half 

 the length of the shell as seen from the outside of the aperture ; sutures 

 very distinct, bordered by a broad band which is very distinctly separated 

 from the other part of the volution by an impressed line nearly or quite as 

 deep and distinctly marked as the suture line itself; surface of the shell 

 marked by numerous vertical folds, with slightly concave spaces between ; 



Etymology: Vulpecula, a little fox. 



