97 



impressed concentric lines, which on the anterior margin are alter- 

 nately obsolete ; interstitial spaces flat ; within tinged with yellow, 

 a callous line, which is sometimes obsolete, passes from behind 

 the hinge to the inner margin of the posterior cicatrix ; anterior 

 hinge tooth emarginate; posterior lamellar tooth very near the 

 cardinal teeth, so as to appear like a primary tooth, that of the 

 right valve wanting ; anterior lamellar tooth at the extremity of 

 the ligament ; anterior hinge slope declining in a somewhat con- 

 cave line to an obliquely truncated tip. 



Length one inch and one-fourth. Width two inches and one- 

 fifth. Thickness two-fifths of an inch. Inhabits the coast of 

 Greorgia and East Florida. Cabinet of the Academy and Phila- 

 delphia Museum. 



Rather a common shell, beautifully and very regularly striated. 

 When cast upon the beach, one of the valves is very commonly 

 perforated near the hinge ; this operation, it would seem, is most 

 frequently performed upon the left valve, as, of ten specimens thus 

 mutilated, I have but two with the perforation on the right valve. 

 It varies in being destitute of the yellow color within. It is 

 probably allied to T. punicea, but I have never found it so far 

 north as the coast of New Jersey. It is much more elongated than 

 the latter, the striae are far more distinct, and it is entirely and 

 always destitute of .the rose-colored bands, and lines, such as are 

 represented in Bern's figure of that shell. It cannot be the 7\ 

 angulosa of Gmel., as that species is described to be suborbicular, 

 and to have the lateral teeth remote, whereas the alternata has 

 but one of the lateral teeth remote. 



Tellina polita. — Shell transversely subtriangular, minutely 

 wrinkled concentrically, white, immaculate ; anterior margin rather 

 shorter than the posterior one, the hinge slope declining, in a very 

 slightly arquated line, to a subacute termination ; basal margin 

 nearly rectilinear from behind the middle to the anterior termina- 

 tion ; a lateral tooth behind the primary teeth. 



Length two-fifths of an inch. Breadth thirteen-twentieths of an 

 inch. Inhabits the southern coast. Cabinet of the Academy and 

 Philadelphia Museum. Not unfrequently on the beach of South 

 Carolina and East Florida. 



