194 
AUKICULID^. 
ness of the volutions. The mouth is generally 
strongly toothed ; but sometimes it is nearly smooth. 
The hinder part of the last whorl and the spire of 
the living or perfect specimen are ciliated near the 
suture ; but the cilia are easily rubbed off in the dry 
shell. These variations induced Dr. Turton, in his 
Dictionary, to divide it into three species. 
The animal is rather rapid in its movements, 
irritable, comes out of the shell rather obliquely. 
The tentacles appear like conical protuberances 
fixed on the muzzle. In their rapid walking they 
are assisted by the end of the muzzle, like the 
Cyclostomes, and carry their shell nearly hori- 
zontally. 
The Conovulus denticulatus feeds on the detritus 
of marine plants and rotten wood ; and lays twelve or 
thirteen eggs in the months of June and September, 
united by a viscid matter into a small mass, which 
is fixed under the more humid stones. The eggs are 
globular, yellowish, and quite diaphanous : they are 
hatched about the fifteenth day, and the animals 
reach their full size about the end of the second 
year. They do not hybernate. 
Mr. Lowe doubts the propriety of referring Va- 
luta denticulata to the genus Melampus^ because he 
thinks that it has a periostracum, which, he believes, 
the other wants ; but the fact is, they all have it, 
and in this species it is only rather thicker than in 
the others. {Zool. Journ. iv. 291.) 
Montagu {Test Brit) and Miller {Ann. Phil. iii. 
777.) truly describe the apex of the shell as being 
destitute of any septa. 
