KELLIA. 89 



We digress, and for the second time earnestly recommend 

 naturalists to observe, in sea-water at least, the external 

 organs and habitudes of the minute animals of all genera, 

 bivalve and gasteropodan, for little more can be done from 

 their minuteness, and publish notices of them in our natural- 

 history records; not mere names and habitats, as is too often 

 the case, but their peculiarities. Opportunities of meeting 

 with rare live animals do not often occur; we speak from 

 forty years' experience ; none ought to be passed by, and all 

 should be examined without delay; the interval of even an 

 hour often paralyses the animal functions : let our motto be 

 " carpe diem ;" many rare creatures, from its neglect, have 

 been lost to science. The almost total dismemberment of 

 the Kelliada is the moral of the above ; we wish to impress 

 the necessity of a more careful examination of the minuter 

 Mollusca. 



We ought to state that the true Kelliadae have the hinge 

 furnished with variable minute irregular primary teeth under 

 the beaks, with flattish triangular laterals on each side in each 

 valve, those of the right one being obscurely double, and a 

 long, strong, very oblique, white internal cartilage, which is 

 often ruptured into two parts, one of which lies in each 

 cartilage-pit. 



KELLIA, Turton. 

 K. SUBOBBICULARIS, Montagu. 



K. suborbicularis, Brit. Moll. ii. p. 87> pi. 18. f. 9 and 9 a, 9 b; and 

 (animal) pi. O. f. 4 and 4 a. 



Animal suborbicular, pure white ; the mantle may be termed 

 partially closed, though there are three openings in it ; the 

 ventral one is considerable, and serves for the admission of 

 water to the branchise, and as an issue for a small hyaline 

 linguiforrn byssal foot, which usually lies centrally exserted, 

 to be prepared to act anteally and posteally ; it is also at the 

 anterior or shorter end, to which the beaks curve, produced 

 into a conical entire tube, not divided within, almost as long 

 as the shell, plain at the orifice; this anomalous production is, 



