10 
DISTRIBUTION OF AUSTRALASIAN VOLUTES. 
6. —VOLUTA PULCIIRA— Sowerby, 
Is properly named, deserving to rank amongst the most beauti¬ 
ful works of nature. It is, comparatively speaking, a small shell; 
the largest specimen I know of is in the cabinet of Mr. C. Coxon, 
of Brisbane, it is over 3^ inches in length. V. pulchra is always 
more or less tuberculated, and has dark violet and brown splashes 
on a fine white ground. I obtained several specimens of Y. 
pulchra from Hobart Town; they were brought from Lady Elliott’s 
Island by a whaler off the East coast of Australia. It is also 
found on Wreck Beef, and will doubtless be met with i n most 
reefs and patches in that vicinity. As there is danger in approach¬ 
ing the islands and reefs on which it lives, it is always likely to 
be a rare shell. In the voyage of the Rattlesnake, the late Mr. 
Macgillivray records having found a specimen of this shell alive 
on Heron Island, on the North-cast Coast of Australia. 
7. — VOLUTA WISEMANI— Brazier, 
Under this name, Mr. Brazier has recently described this species, 
in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of 1870, although it so 
closely resembles the Y. pulchra , as to have been long mistaken for 
it; but he considers that it has characters sufficiently different to 
found a new Species on. It is rather a larger shell than Y. 
pulchra , and of a pale straw colour, ornamented with bright 
chestnut blotches, rarely showing the black dots of its near ally, 
and there is an absence also of the short reddish longitudinal frill 
of lines below the sutures. The specimens which I possess of this 
species were collected with specimens of Y. pulchra , and said to 
have been obtained from Lady Elliott’s Island; but other specimens 
have since been found on the islands and reefs on the East * 
coast about Port Denison. It is probable that were these islands 
more visited, it would be found abundantly, as well as V. pulchra # 
8. — VOLUTA MAMILLA— Gray, 
This species, one of the largest and rarest of the genus, may be 
considered as a native of the North coast of Tasmania, although 
specimens have been occasionally found at Broken Bay, on the East 
coast of New South Wales. 
The finest examples have hitherto been procured from the Black 
River Beach, the Duck River, Port Sorrell, and other localities 
included between Circular Head and those of the Tamar. 
I may observe with regard to its scarcity that although a large 
price has been offered for live shells, but very few have been ob¬ 
tained ; and even dead specimens are with difficulty procured. 
This volute has received ild trivial name on account of the large 
swollen nipple on its apex, which is so strongly developed, that 
Reeve originally mistook it for a malformation. 
