Pvn H,i I'UitlS

at the height (accurately ascertained)
DONAX. 405
of from 1330 to
1360 feet above the present level of the sea, together
with about fifty other species of shells mostly of an arctic
character ! (Darbishire) ; Mammalian Crag, Bramerton
(S. Wood) ; Sicilian tertiaries (Philippi). M fAndrew has
taken it on the coasts of Upper Norway in 3-25 fathoms ;
I noticed specimens from Jutland in the Royal Museum
at Copenhagen; and southwards it occurs from Schel-
ling on the Dutch coast to Vigo, as well as in the Mediterranean,
iEgean, and Black Sea.
Marvellous accounts have been given of the agility of
this little shell-fish, one of them being that when it is
taken out of the sand it will endeavour to regain the sea
bv a succession of well-directed leaps.
It certainly can
twist itself about almost as actively as Nassa neritea
does in the lagun.es of Venice ; and that is saying a good
deal for it. The fry have triangular shells, with the
posterior end more rounded and the beaks prominent ;
in this stage of growth it is the D. rubra of Turton. A
specimen in my cabinet is inequivalve,
overlapping and partly enveloping the other,
the left valve
as in Cor-
bula. The colours of this shell do not soon fade; they
are, as Tennyson says, of the kind
"That keep the wear and polish of the ware."
This is the D. trunculus of Linne, although
his re-
ferences to the works of Adanson, Buonanni, Klein, and
Argenville belong to an allied species which now generally
bears that name. His descriptions in the ' Fauna
Suecica' as well as in the tenth and twelfth editions
of the '
Systema
Naturae '
exactly apply to the present
species ; and the first authority which he cites is Lis-
ter's f
Treatises on English Animals/ Da Costa finds
fault with these inconsistent references ; but he seems