Pvn H,i I'UitlS

NUCULA. 143
Forbes obtained it at depths varying from 45 to 145
fathoms. Bronn and Philippi have described it as a
fossil of the Subapennine tertiaries ;
in upper miocene strata at Biot near Antibes.
and I have found it
This is the largest British species of Nucula. It can
Conchological
Illustrations/ because the description and figure do not
answer to our shell, and that species is stated to have
come from the Gulf of Guinea. It may be his N. rugu-
hardly be the N. decussata of Sowerby's f
losa, which is said to be of the size of N. nitida, although
the locality is not mentioned. At all events Bronn's
name has the precedence of many years
over those of
Sowerby. Philippi described, in the first volume of the
'
Sicilian Testacea/ the present species under the name
of N. Polii. Bronn^s diagnosis exactly agrees with our
shell ; and he justly observes that it is larger and
broader than A 7 , nucleus. In the l
Proceedings '
of the
Zoological Society for 1856, another species from New
Zealand has been called, by Mr. A. Adams, N. sulcata.
2. N. nu'cleus*, Linne.
Area nucleus, Linn. Syst. Nat. p. 1143. N. nucleus, F. & H. ii. p. 215,
pi. xlvii. f. 7, 8, and (animal) pi. P. f. 4.
Body suboval, cream-colour, mottled with flake-white: man-
tle having a plain margin :
gills triangular and elongated,
finelv striated on the outer and inner surfaces, and of a brown
colour ; the upper lamina of each pair is by far the larger of
the two, and entirely covers the other :
lips pendulous, and
transversely striated, each of them folded inwards or doubled :
foot oval, pale yellow, deeply serrated at the margin, and exhibiting
about fifty denticles.
Shell like that of the last species in shape, but much smaller,
shorter, and more tumid, as well as more triangular in con-
sequence of the posterior side being less produced :
* A small nut.
sculpture,