68 POPULAR BRITISH CONCHOLOGY. 



seems to unite the following genera with some propriety, 

 although, in many respects, they do not form a group that 

 would seem natural to the eye. 



I. Cyprina Islandica. — Only separated from the genus Ve- 



nus by the above distinction ; delights in northern seas ; 

 his shell is thick, and covered with a thick coating of 

 brown epidermis, as if to keep him comfortable in those 

 icy regions, where he abounds more than on our own 

 coasts. 



II. Circe minima has a prettily scalloped mantle, a foot 



with a kind of heel to it, and a small, flat, roundish shell, 

 very variously coloured, and concentrically ridged, wdth 

 the hinge-teeth of a Cytliercea ; he lives in sand or mud 

 on the Mediterranean shores, where his colours are even 

 more varied and bright than under our quiet skies. 



III. AsTARTE has a thick shell, well coated with a thick, 

 smooth epidermis, and having the teeth of Yemis ; the 

 mantle and siphonal openings are edged with a bright 

 orange line. Specimens of Astarte are found undigested 

 in the stomachs of cod-fish, which seem to be fond of 

 them. Of the British species, speaking of the shells, 



A. 8.cotica, including A. Banmoniensis, is rather square in 

 outline, strongly ridged. 



