OCR Text |
Show 1867.] DR. J. E. GRAY ON HYALONEMA LUSITANICUM. 1001 conical, whorls rapidly enlarging ; upper whorls minutely keeled, the others rounded ; axis imperforate. Aperture ovate, periostraca thin. Opercules ovate, size of the aperture, shelly, thin, elastic like the shell, concentrically striated externally, nucleus near the margin of the middle of the columella side. Hab. Africa. This shell differs from all the other Ampulariadee in its extreme thinness and elasticity, in the keeled upper whorls, and in the surface being variegated. The substance of the shell contains so much animal matter that when bruised a depression, and not a hole, is formed in the surface. I have named this genus of beautiful shells after m y friend Miss J. Saul, who has the finest private collection of shells in the country. SAULEA VITREA. Shell ovate, subgiobose, very thin and light, smooth, blackish brown, variegated with bright yellow blotches from interrupted flexuous transverse bands ; spire conical, about two-thirds the length of the aperture; apex rounded; upper whorls obscurely keeled ; last whorls regularly rounded; axis imperforate; peristome thin ; operculum shelly, very thin, with the nucleus near the middle of the inner or columellar margin. Helix vitrea, Born, Mus. 383, t. 15. f. 15, 16; Chemn. xi. 282, t. 210. f. 2072, 2073. Ampullaria vitrea, Reeve, Conch. Icon. f. Hab. River Sherboro, Sierra Leone. B.M. 10. Observations on Dr. Bowerbank's Paper on Hyalonema lusitanicum. By Dr. J. E. G R A Y , F.R.S., V.P.Z.S., F.L.S., &c. Dr. Bowerbank read a paper at the Society's Meeting on the 28th of November in which he concludes, " from microscopical examination, that Hyalonema lusitanicum, which has lately been elevated to the rank of a genus by Dr. Gray, and proposed to be called Hyalothrix, is not even specifically distinct from H. mirabile of Japan." When Dr. Bowerbank prepared and read that paper, he had not seen, much less microscopically examined, the specimen on which my genus Hyalothrix was established, which is the only specimen of Hyalonema lusitanicum in this country. It appears that he had examined a part of the sponge that was found attached to one out of the twelve specimens of this coral that M . Bocage had obtained. Finding that sponge very similar to that attached to the Japanese Hyalonema, he pronounced the two corals to be of the same species. Admitting that the sponge, theptwisted axis, and the polypes are one sponge, which Dr. Bowerbank believes, though it is against the universal opinion of all other zoologists, it surely is a very rash PROC. ZOOL. Soc-1867, No. LXIV. |