Page:American Seashells (1954).djvu/324

242 light-chestnut, reddish brown or dark-brown. Not so shouldered as, and less coarsely sculptured than, mcgintyi. It is much stouter and not so elongate as infundibulum, but like that species may have narrow, brown spiral lines or threads. Moderately common in the West Indies. Genus Fasciolaria Lamarck 1799 Fasciolaria tulipa Linne True Tulip Plate 13b North Carolina to south half of Florida and West Indies. 3 to 5 inches in length, with 2 or 3 small spiral grooves just below the suture, between which the shell surface is often crinkled. Sometimes with broken spiral color lines. A beautiful orange-red color variety is not un- common on the Lower Keys. Common. Giants reach a length of 10 inches. Fasciolaria hunteria Perry Banded Tulip Plate 13c North Carolina to Florida and the Gulf States. 2 to 4 inches in length, whorls entirely smooth near the suture. The widely spaced, rarely broken, distinct, spiral, purple-brown lines are charac- teristic. Albino shells are rare. A common western Florida species which lives in warm, shallow areas. Formerly F. distans Lamarck, a later name. The subspecies braiihamae Rehder and Abbott from Yucatan to off west Texas has a much longer siphonal canal and the spiral color lines are also on the siphonal canal. Intergrades exist in Louisiana and Alabama. Branham's Tulip is moderately common. Genus Pleuroploca P. Fischer 1884 Pleuroploca gigantea Kiener Florida Horse Conch Plate 13a North Carolina to both sides of Florida. Almost 2 feet in length, although usually about i foot. Outer surface dirty-white to chalky-salmon, and covered with a fairly thick, black-brown periostracum which flakes off in dried specimens. The young (up to about 3% inches) have a thinner periostracum and the entire shell is a bright orange- red. A form which lacks the nodules on the last whorl was named reevei Philippi 1 85 1. P. papulosa Sowerby 1825 is insufficiently described to apply with any certainty to this species. A similar, large species, P. prmceps Sowerby (the Panama Horse Conch), occurs from the Gulf of California to Ecuador. Its operculum has deep, rounded grooves. Both of these Horse Conchs were previously put in the genus Fasciolaria. I