Pvn H,i I'UitlS

190 GALEOMMID.E.
in a raised beach, at the distance of about a league from
the sea, with other shells belonging to species that are
still living in that part of the Mediterranean.
Mr. Clark informed me that he gave his dredger,
taken at
Branscombe, a guinea for the first specimen
Exmouth. Branscombe's account was that he captured
the same day a second specimen, and laid it on one of
the thwarts of his boat, until the jar which contained its
intended companion in captivity could be got ready,
but that in the mean time the free specimen crawled
away and escaped
overboard. This is like Mr. Stutch-
bury's story of the once rare Trigonia pectinata, several
specimens of which he unaccountably lost, before he was
aware of its habit of taking a long leap, and he wrongly
accused his dredger of secreting them. As, however, it
was not Branscombe's interest to keep back any shell
from his liberal employer, who paid him much better
than any one else, the disappearance of the Galeomma
in the mode above related seems very probable. Scacchi,
Philippi, Deshayes, Mittre, and Clark have severally
described the animal. The last-named author says,
" A fasciculus of fine filaments issues from the byssal
fissure in the foot, which fix the animal so firmly to
whatever it is placed on, as to require some force to dis-
turb it ; in fact the byssus is discarded, by being alto-
gether withdrawn from a slit in the foot, whenever an
attempt is made to remove the animal by force ; but
though we repeated the operation several times, the
little creature did not appear to be injured or less lively,
but, as soon as it had crawled to some distance, we had
the good fortune to witness the formation of a new
byssus, which was effected by the discharge of a lightgreen
gelatinous opake matter from the fissure at the
heel of the foot, which by its ponderosity resolved itself