Pvn H,i I'UitlS

260 CARDITID^E.
posterior side project or " pout " a little. The foot is
slender, remarkably flexible, and extensile. It often
assumes a cylindrical shape, especially when the animal
is creeping, being dilated with water through an open-
ing at the base or heel. It is nearly as long
as the shell
is broad, and is sometimes thrust out on the anterior
side, so as to resemble a tube or siphon, as represented
in Forbes and Hanley's plate. The figures given in the
present volume were taken from the life by Dr. Saxby,
and are perfectly accurate in every particular.
The European species of Cyamium lives between
tide-marks, and literally swarms in some places. It
attaches itself to seaweeds and other objects by means
of a fine but tenacious byssus. Although it is minute
(barely a tenth of an inch from one end to the other) it
did not escape the keen eye of the great Otho Fabricius,
who described it with his wonted accuracy upwards of
eighty years ago. No species has been recognized in a
fossil state. The Cyamium ? eocimium of Searles Wood
appears to belong to another genus.
Cyamium minu'tum *, Fabricius.
Venus minuta, Fabr. Faun. Groenl. p. 412. Turtonia minuta, F. & H.
ii. p. 81. pi. xviii. f. 7 & 7a, and (animal) pi. O. f. 1.
Body gelatinous, greyish-white with a faint tinge of purple :
tithe, almost sessile : foot very flexible.
Shell rhomboidal, or inclined to triangular in consequence
of the prominence of the beaks, convex, rather thin, semi-
transparent and glossy : sculpture, irregular lines of growth,
and fine but not close-set intermediate strias : colour purplish-
brown, varying in intensity, and sometimes very pale, espe-
cially in front : epidermis only observable in bleached specimens
: margins rounded on the anterior side, with an oblique
slope to the front, which has a long and gentle curve, wedge-
* Minute.