Pvn H,i I'UitlS

424 MACTRID.E.
in all our upper tertiary strata from the Scotch glacial
beds (Smith) to the Coralline Crag (S. Wood). Its
extra-British habitat seems to be southern rather than
northern. I observed specimens in the Royal Museum
at Copenhagen from the Danish shores of the Baltic ;
has been enumerated in every list of French, Lusita-
nian, Italian, and Algerian shells ; Ehrenberg obtained
it in the Red Sea, and Forbes in the iEgean ; and
M'Andrew dredged a single valve off the Canaries in
35 fathoms. The range of depth ascertained by the
last-named observer on the coast of Portugal was from
15 to 30 fathoms. Brocchi and Philippi have recorded
it as fossil in the newer tertiaries of Italv,— the one from
the north, and the other from the south.
Lister discovered and figured this shell. According
to Bouchard- Chantereaux its inhabitant serves for bait
to catch whiting in the bays of Normandy. English
fishes are not less fond of such savoury morsels, as may
be inferred from the following note of Mr. Dennis :—
"When the steam dredging-machines were at work at
the mouth of Newhaven harbour last year [1861], they
turned up so many of the Mactra stultorum that the
beach at high-water mark (where a shell rarely occurs)
was covered with them ; and the trawl-fish, such as soles,
&c, found their way to the spot where the barges were
emptied, in such numbers that the Brighton trawlers or
c
were most successful in capturing them
Hogboats '
within one hundred yards of the shore." He adds that
" some of the people eat this Mactra." Shells of a
smaller size, but thinner and more beautifully rayed than
usual, were procured by Mr. Rich from the Silver-pit
in about 30 fathoms. This is similar to
fishing- grounds,
the case of M. solida, var. elliptica, mentioned at p. 418.
The largest specimens are found in Burra fiord in Unst.
it