Pvn H,i I'UitlS

TELLINA. 381
shells may often be seen lining the upper tide-mark in
large bays, having been torn from their soft beds and
cast up by the waves. Helplessly stranded, amid sea-
weeds and foam, they lie in the rays of the setting
sun, wet and glistening, ruby, gold, amber, and opal.
These petty wrecks always accompany a storm ; and
afterwards the sea puts on a sorrowful face *, as if half
conscious and repenting of the havoc he had lately
made. Who has not enjoyed at such a time a ramble
on the wide beach, perhaps
not unobservant of the
various debris with which it is now strewn,
pensive
mood and
" Framing wild fancies to the ocean's swell " ?
albeit in a
The Ettrick shepherd may have had in his eye a
scene of this kind when he wrote,
" While fairy shells in myriads lying,
The smooth hard sand in lustre dyeing,
Encircle with a far-seen chain
Of glory the most glorious main."
The sea in a happier aspect, decorating with shells the
tawny brow of his bride, the shore, has been portrayed by
a more modern poet in some well-known lines ; and the
conchologist ought to be doubly gratified by his favourite
theme being so immortalized by the northern muse.
The T. tenuis of Chemnitz is a different species. Our
shell is his T. incarnata, and probably that of Bisso ;
but the descriptions of the latter are so vague and in-
sufficient, that it is almost a waste of labour to attempt
any identification of his species. It is the T. planata
of Pennant and T.polita of Pulteney (but not either of
the species so named by Linne), and the T. extgua of
Poli.
* " Whispering how meek and gentle he can be."