Pvn H,i I'UitlS

338 VENERIDvE.
crossed by similar but stronger longitudinal striae, giving a
partially cancellated appearance to young shells, especially
on the posterior side : colour yellowish-white, occasionally
adorned by three or more rays of reddish-brown, which are
frequently broken or form irregular lines of spots or zigzag
markings : epidermis fibrous, brown, thick at the edges but
elsewhere rubbed off or not : present margins rounded on
the anterior side, with a slight shoulder or sharp angular
turn behind, and sloping obliquely to the front, which is
curved but does not represent so great an arc as in V.fasciata,
decidedly truncate on the posterior side, and obtusely rounded
on the dorsal slope, with a slight indentation below the beaks
for the lunule ; the posterior margin is indistinctly biangulated
: heals recurved, but not so separate, nor the umbones
so prominent as in the last species : lunule the same,
as well as
the corselet, but the latter is wide and generally not so deep :
ligament of a similar colour, but more exposed: hinge-line and
characters : teeth
hinge-plate also presenting approximative
undistinguishable, except in the greater size, from those of V.
fasciata : inside chalky- white within the line of the pallial scar,
and porcellanous near the margin, which is finely notched in
front and on the anterior side (in young specimens also up to
the beaks on that side) but smooth on the posterior side:
pallial scar broad, with a narrow and not deep sinus : muscular
scars large and distinct. L. 1*6. B. 1*75.
Habitat : Local, but widely distributed north, east,
south, and west, from 5 to 90 fathoms, on a sandy
bottom. Capt. Beechey dredged it in 145 fathoms off
the Mull of Galloway. It occurs in all our upper ter-
tiaries from the Clyde beds to the Coralline Crag, and
Philippi has included it among the fossils of the Sicilian
strata. North of Great Britain it has been found on
many parts of the Norwegian coast in 15-40 fathoms,
and southwards on the coasts of France, Spain, Portu-
gal, Italy, and Algeria,
Canary Isles.
Scarcely anything
as well as of Madeira and the
is known of the animal. The shell
is remarkably pretty, but usually almost devoid of colour :
specimens from Bantry Bay
have the most vivid tints.