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Show 812 MR. E. A. SMITH ON MARINE SHELLS [Nov. 5, lirate within. The present species is remarkable for the great convexity of the whorls, and the fineness of the spiral scaly lirae. The aperture also is unusually short in proportion to the whole length ; and the lirae within are very fine, and produced as far as the eye can trace inwards. 36. SISTRUM MARGARITICOLA, Bruguiere. Hab. Singapore; Lord Hood's Island; Natal. 37. LATIRUS DECORATUS, A. Adams, P.Z.S. 1854, p. 316; Kuster, Con. Cab. Ad. 2, pl. 25. figs. 12, 13 (as Turbinella). (Plate L. fig. 11.) Hab. New Zealand (Adams). The Andaman variety of this species has the longitudinal costae much thicker, and consequently fewer in a whorl, than the New- Zealand form ; and the colour is a little different. The general tint is whitish with a blush of rose, the two granulous lirae beneath the suture light brown, interstices between the costae dark brown, the body-whorl with a rose-coloured band bordered on each side by a white liration around the middle, the tip of the canal blackish, the columella and outer lip pinkish, and the apex of the spire pink. The colour of this species ("alba castaneo varie picta") given by Adams does not at all describe the variety of painting. There are two specimens in the Cumingian collection, both pinkish white with a rosy apex and a pinkish aperture; and one, probably the type, has the dark brown tip to the canal. The shell figured in the Conchylien-Cabinet is larger than the type or the Andaman specimens. The former is 18 mill, long, 17 in diameter, and the largest of the latter 20 in length and 8 in width. 38. LATIRUS FASTIGIUM (Reeve). (Plate L. fig. 12.) Turbinella fastigium, Reeve, Conch. Ic. iv. figs. 72 a, b. Hab. Ceylon. Of this species the British Museum possesses three specimens- one from Ceylon, the type (the habitat of which is unknown), and the third presented by Capt.Wilmer, from the Andaman Islands. Two of them have six longitudinal costa?, whilst the type has only five. The latter is an immature shell; and consequently the figure of it in the 'Conchologia Iconica' does not convey a true idea of the aperture in the adult. When perfect the canal is a little longer and the columella is covered with a callosity, the edge of which is produced, and at the base of the shell forms an umbilical fissure. Reeve does not mention that one or two of the spiral lirae just beneath the suture are conspicuously scabrous; nor does he point out that 4 or 5 of them around the cauda of the body-whorl are also scabrous and thicker than the rest, which are frequently alternately coarser and finer. The plaits on the columella are somewhat indistinct and about five in number; and the aperture is finely lirated within, the lirae terminating at some distance from the margin of the labrum. |