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SCROBICULARIA. 441
his yacht. One haul yielded some of the present species,
which is more frequently met with on the shore, thrown
up by the waves,
than fresh from its native haunts.
When the dredge came up, the whole party rushed forward
to see the result ;
and Baron Middendorff (the great
Russian conchologist) in his eagerness nearly knocked
down one of them. Stopping suddenly short, he took
off his hat and made this apology for his unintentional
rudeness—" Mille pardons, Monsieur !
enivre des coquilles."
mais
je suis
S. alba can not only burrow, but
walk; and Bouchard-Chantereaux mentions his having
watched them crawling up the sides of a phial filled
with sea-water, in which he kept some specimens.
Dr.
Leach savs that it is a favourite food of the cod. This
shell attains a large size in the Shetland seas, being
about an inch in breadth and of proportionate length.
Its colour is always pure white, and uncontaminated by
the mud with which it is in contact— the lustre being
perhaps preserved by constant activity, as is the case
with our own moral virtues :
"
Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright : to have done, is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
In monumental mockery."
Its nearest ally is S. nitida ; but that species is flatter
and of a more delicate and fragile texture, the posterior
side is elongated and produced to a more acute point,
and the gape at that end is considerably wider.
It is the Mactra Boysii of Montagu, Tellina pellucida
of Brocchi, T. opalina of Benier, Amphidesma semi-
dentata of Scacchi (according to Philippi), Erycina
Renieri of Bronn, Abra fabalis of S. Wood, and Am-
phidesma Boysiana
of Leach.
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