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within; the outer lip much spread, with the margin sharp and slightly reflected; pillar smooth.

This fine shell was taken by the dredge, off Scarborough; and is in the cabinet of Mr. Bean, who obligingly sent it to us for examination and description.

TRITON CUTA CEUS L., Sowerby, Gen. fig. 3.

Testa ovata, dorso tumido, subtus deplanata, cingulis transversis prominulis subnodosis, varicibus duabus, nodosis, alternis; columella umbilicata; labro intus serie duplici crenato.

Shell oval, tumid on the back and flat underneath, with transverse and rather prominent belts, which are slightly nodulous; varices two, knotty and alternate; pillar umbilicate, outer lip crenulate internally in a double

row.

Length nearly 3 in., and half as much wide; yellowish white, pure white within; pillar with a small nodule near the upper end.

Three or four of these shells were cast on shore, after a violent gale, near Falmouth, in Cornwall; and we have taken them on the Guernsey coast. From their worn and much stained state, they appear to have come from very remote and deep water.

? IANTHINA EXIGUA Sowerby Gen. fig. 2, 3.

Testa ovata, subfusiformi, bifariam striata, spira producta acuta. Shell oval, a little swollen in the middle, striate in a double direction; the spire produced and pointed.

Length four tenths of an inch, three tenths broad; of a violet colour, and a more conical shape than I. frágilis, in consequence of the spire being more produced, and the volutions rounded and more distinctly defined; the mouth is also not so proportionately spread, by which it appears of a somewhat spindle-like form, the primary volution being swollen and slightly carinate in the middle; the striæ are very distinct and elegant, oblique, and turning at the subcarinate part in an obtusely angular direction.

In the small coves about the Land's End, in Cornwall, the ? Iánthina frágilis is occasionally wafted, by a gentle southwest wind, in prodigious fleets; all alive, and borne upon the water by their clusters of tough bubble-like vesicles. By the retreating waves, most of them are carried back into the ocean; so that it requires a fortunate combination of tide, wind, and wave to see them in all their splendour. This mostly happens about the months of July and August. The fishermen's wives call them bullhorns, which supposes a prior knowledge of their appearance. Among them are sometimes found a few of I. exigua; which, having been probably regarded as the young of I. frágilis, may have caused them to be overlooked.

BU'LLA ZONA TA [Turton], Scaphander Leach.

Testa ovata, solida, opaca, albo et fulvo alternatim zonata, lineis transversis elevato-punctulatis.

Shell oval, solid, opaque, with alternate zones of white and fulvous, and transverse lines of minute raised dots.

Length a quarter of an inch, breadth nearly as much.

This very elegant species in shape very much resembles a small B. lignària; but is of a more conic oval shape, with the volutions more loosely connected; the crown is umbilicated, and, together with the pillar, pure white. On the body are regular, rather broad, alternate, transverse bands of white and pale rufous brown; and round each of the white belts is a regular line of very minute raised granular dots. Found near the Land's End. (Mus. Clark.)

BU'LLA HYA LINA [Turton], Roxània Leach.

Testa ovata, hyalina, lævi; aperture basi dilatata; columella umbilicata; corona planata, canaliculata, umbonata.

Shell oval, transparent, smooth; apertura dilated at the base; pillar umbilicate; crown flattened, channelled, umbonate.

It something resembles the Búlla umbilicàta; but is shorter, and of a more oval shape, with the aperture more dilated, and is of a crystalline transparency. At the base of the inner margin there is a reflection of the pillar, forming a slight groove or umbilicus; and the central umbo on the crown is very distinct and prominent. The last two marks seem to fix it in the genus Cýmba of Lamarck and Sowerby; but we have not remarked the sharp plaits on the pillar.

Found abundantly on the coast about Newcastle; whence it was sent us by Mr. Alder. We also discovered it near the Land's End, in Cornwall. (Mus. Alder, Clark.) BULLE A PUNCTA`TA [Turton], Búlla punctata Adams, Linn. Trans. vi. t. i. fig. 6, 7, 8.

Testa ovata, hyalina, lineis transversis impresso-punctatis; corona canaliculata.

Shell oval, transparent, with transverse lines of distinct impressed dots. The accurate observations of Mr. Clark, who favoured us with specimens, have fully distinguished this species from B. catèna of Montagu. The shell is something smaller, of a more oval shape, with the crown more flattened; and, instead of oval, raised, chainlike points, which form the lines in B. catèna, the lines in this species consist of distinct impressed dots.

Mr. Clark has also been able to ascertain, that, in B. catèna, the animal is of a yellowish white, and furnished with a gizzard; but that the animal of B. punctàta is of a blackish grey colour, and destitute of any trace of gizzard. Found by Mr. Clark, near Exmouth.

Bideford, Devon, May 1. 1834.

ART. IX. A Notice of Localities, Habits, Characteristics, and Synonymes of a rare British Species of Mytilus. By Mr. WILLIAM WILLIAMSON, Jun.

MY'TILUS SUBSAXATILIS [Williamson].- A species of Mýtilus has been occasionally found on various parts of the

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eastern coasts of Yorkshire and Durham, and has been arranged under the different names of M. angulàtus and M. solitàrius. Nothing has, however, been known of its habits, in consequence of the specimens (which have been generally found attached to the roots of seaweeds) being so rare, and all of them young ones, until lately, when a habitat of this species was discovered a little to the north of Scarborough. The only other species to which it bears any resemblance are the M. edulis and the M. incurvàtus, both of which are found in the neighbourhood. In the drawing (fig. 48.), a is a

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lateral representation of a full grown shell, and d is the anterior margin of the same. From the M. edulis, to which it approaches in size, it differs in the greater thickness of the shell, which is strong and solid; the hinge-line is longer, and very straight, giving rather a rhomboidal form to the valves, sometimes even more so than in the figures; while in the M. edulis it is curved; the anterior margin is broad, depressed, and a little convex, instead of being produced; the lines of growth are also comparatively stronger. In form, it bears a greater resemblance to the M. incurvàtus; but the latter wants the straight hinge-line, and is not of half the size. The young shells (b and c) have the character of the hinge even more striking, and are of a deep brown colour, instead of the dirty blue of the old ones. Still stronger

points of distinction between these three species are supplied by the differences in their habits. The M. edulis is found thickly clustered on the large flat scars, and the M. incurvatus fills the crevices and fissures of the rocks: the species which is the subject of my notice is invariably, except in the solitary instances to which I have above alluded, laid under water. It is found in the large pools left by the retiring tide, in groups of three or four together, firmly attached by their strong byssus to the under surfaces of the large stones with which the water is here and there studded; so that, to procure them, it is necessary to wade into the pools, and overturn these stones.

Mr. J. Alder of Newcastle has arranged it under the name of Mytilus angulatus; and the Rev. W. Mark of Shields calls it M. solitàrius; but the largest individuals which these gentlemen have ever seen are less than the smaller figures (b and c); and as the shells of all muscles are more or less angular, and as this is not a species of a solitary habit, I would propose the name of M. subsaxátilis, as most characteristic of the situations in which it is found. The characters of its habitat, combined with its peculiar solid form, give it as good a title to be styled a distinct species as, if not a better one than, that of the transparent shell of the M. pellucidus, or the small blunted form of the shell of the M. incurvàtus, does these species respectively.

Queen Street, Scarborough, June 10, 1834.

[FOR a notice of the localities of the M. polymorphus, see VI. 532.; and for a statement of the characteristics of the M. striátulus Linn., see VII. 350.]

ART. X. Observations on the Work of Maria Sibilla Merian on the Insects, &c., of Surinam. By the late Rev. Lansdown Guilding,

B.A. F.L.S. &c. *

SUCH of your readers as may possess a coloured copy of Madame Merian's work, may be glad to receive the

[* He died at St. Vincent in 1832, under 50 years of age.

"Yes! thou hast pass'd life's transient hour,
Yet oft shall fancy's witching power

Recall thy parted breath:

Still shall thy name in deeds' survive,
Still shall thy thought' in memory live,

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Though thou art cold in death!'

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In vol. xvii. of the Linnæan Transactions, part i. published May, 1834, there is an additional instance of the industry of this arduous-minded man:

remarks which I have been able to make on the value and interest of her figures, during my residence in a country similar to that in which her collections were formed.

We can never sufficiently admire the zeal of this female votary of the sciences, who, quitting the comforts of her home, sought for two years the gratification of her curiosity in a far distant land, under a burning sun, and in an unwholesome climate her book, however, abounds with errors, against which the naturalist of Europe should be always upon his guard. At the period in which it was issued from the press, 1726 (according to Kirby, an edition seems to have been published as early as 1705), it was considered a splendid and valuable addition to the libraries of the learned; and it continues still to be admired, from the size of its showy plates, and the beauty of the subjects depicted, though the state of entomological engraving in 1726 was very imperfect; and the figures are sadly deficient in that minuteness of detail which is indispensable.

Its principal value seems to me to consist in the figures of larvæ and pupæ. Much fault is to be found with the absurd position of many of the figures, and the very great inaccuracy of others indeed, it is difficult to imagine how they could have been prepared, unless they were sketched from memory. The grand defect of the work is the introduction of idle stories, related to her by strangers. The "paucis solum exceptis, quæ ex ore Indorum percepta junxi," go far to destroy that confidence which would naturally be given to a patient observer of nature. Linné, and some others of the older writers, have been led to give very inapplicable names to various species of Lepidoptera, taken from the plants on which they are falsely represented to have fed.

I shall pass on to notice the plates, which are 72 in number, and at the end of each note will say something as to the value of the figure of the plant introduced. The plates are preceded by one of those fanciful and useless frontispieces which were formerly thought indispensable in an illustrated work, and which occupied, to no purpose, the time and labour of the engraver. Here the fair author is

it is entitled, "Observations on Naticina and Dentalium, two Genera of Molluscous Animals," p. 29., and consists for the most part of technical descriptions and notices of systematic affinities; two Dentàlia are figured. This remark is given in the paper: "I have transmitted a drawing and description of the typical species of Naticina to my friend Mr. Swainson, who has promised to insert many of my drawings of West Indian shells in his beautiful work. entitled Zoological Illustrations.'"]

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