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BULLIDAE 277
Fa7mly DIAPHANIDAE
Genus Diaphiina Brown 1827
Diaphana minuta Brown Arctic Paper-bubble
Arctic Seas to Connecticut. Europe.
Figure 59b
3 to 5 mm. in length, globose, thin, fragile, and transparent-tan in color.
Last whorl globose below, constricted somewhat above. Apex large, globose,
obliquely and mammillarly projecting. Suture deep. Columella long, straight,
not thickened, the edge partly closing the narrow umbilicus. Moderately
common from 6 to 16 fathoms. Diaphana debilis Gould, D. hiemalis Couthouy
and D. globosa Loven are considered synonyms of this species by
Lemche (1948) and other modern workers.
Family BULLIDAE
Genus Bulla Linne 1758
The names Vesica Swainson 1840 and Bullaria Rafinesque 18 15 have been
ill-advisably used for this genus. Fortunately, the name Bulla has been
conserved for this group of bubble-shells by the International Commission
for Zoological Nomenclature.
Bulla striata Bruguiere Striate Bubble
West coast of Florida to Texas and the West Indies.
Plate 13P
% to I inch in length, similar to occidentalis, but larger, heavier, and
with the spiral grooves well-marked toward the base of the shell and within
the apical perforation. The whorls are compressed at the apical end. Colu-
mella usually with a brown-stained callus. Locally common. B. amygdala
Brug. is probably a smooth form of this species.
Bulla occidentalis A. Adams Common West Indian Bubble
North Carolina to southeast Florida and the West Indies.
Plate 26p
V2 to I inch in length, smooth, varying from fragile to quite strong,
and from cylindrical (young) to fairly swollen. Apex deeply and narrowly
perforate. Color very variable, but usually whitish with mottlings, zebra
stripes and obscure bands of brown. Surface with numerous, microscopic
striations. This is a very common bubble-shell which is found most easily
at night and at low tide on grassy, mud flats. The author is often misnamed
as "C. B. Adams."