TAPES. 



351 



at Belfast and in the Sussex tertiaries and Mammalian 

 Crag. Var. 1. Cork (Humphreys). Var. 2. Bantry Bay 

 and Falmouth (J. Gr. J.). Two other varieties were 

 found by Dr. Turton in a semifossil state imbedded in 

 blue clay at Clontarf near Dublin. One of them he 

 described and figured in his 'Conchological Dictionary' 

 as Venus cenea, and the other as V. nitens. These last 

 are much smaller and thinner than the typical form, 

 and may belong to some of Lamarck's species from the 

 Mediterranean which have been carved out of T. aureus. 

 Clark referred Turton's varieties to T. virgineuSj and he 

 questioned if that and T. aureus were not the same 

 species. Sars has taken the ordinary sort of a large 

 size by dredging off the Loffoden Isles ; and Loven, 

 Asbjornsen, Danielssen, and Malm have also recorded 

 it from the Scandinavian coasts, at depths varying only 

 from 5 to 10 fathoms. South of Great Britain it is 

 found everywhere as far as the iEgean, where Forbes 

 took it in 4-10 fathoms ; Middendorff gives the Black 

 Sea as a habitat. It is strange that the animal of a 

 species so common as this on many of our shores should 

 never have been described or noticed. I hope the 

 " hiatus valde deflendus" will soon be filled up, with 

 others of the same kind. The shell, which is very pretty, 

 was figured by Lister as English. In Turton's collection 

 is a monstrosity which he mistook for the Venus sinuosa 

 of Pennant. It has an oblique fold extending from the 

 umbonal area to the front towards the posterior side. 

 I possess another distortion which is less flexuous. 



The present species appears to be the Venus Iceta of 

 Poli, the animal of which he has described as follows : 

 — Body whitish : mantle having its edges waved and 

 fringed : tubes of unequal size, rather wide, united for 

 three-fourths of their lengths ; orifices cirrous, and en- 



