CONCHYLIA— Z)/THyi2^. 6. -21 



Dillwyn, Descript. Catal. p. 156. 



Turton, Conch. Diet. p. 43. 

 Cuneus foliatus. Da Costa, Brit. Conch, p. 204, tab. 15, fig. 6, 



left hand. 

 Mus. nost. From rocks in Torbay. 



Shell half an inch long, and three quarters of an inch broad, 

 brownish-white, generally of an oblong or oval shape, but varying 

 much in its outline, being sometimes truncate at the anterior end, 

 and sometimes, rounded, with rather distant thin transverse plates 

 or foliations, which reflect a little, and marked with regular close 

 longitudinal striae between them ; the anterior end mostly gaping, 

 raiely nearly closed: inside white, with frequently a chocolate 

 blotch at one end, with the margin plain : hinge near one end. 



From the varieties in their figure Lamarck has instituted several 

 species, and has even placed it in the genus Venerupis : but the 

 teeth of this tribe are essentially different, approaching more to the 

 Venus, being usually connivent at their base and divaricate at their 

 tips : whereas the Venerupis has the teeth long and slender, some- 

 what curved backwards, and all parallel and equidistant. 

 What ideas of contempt Linn^ had attached to this shell when he 

 denominated it Irus, it would now be useless to enquire; perhaps 

 from its solitary confinement in rocks, like Diogenes in his tub, 

 or from the meagerness of its colours. Irus was the pander of 

 Penelope's suitors, and whom Ulysses upon his return killed 

 with his fist ; so beggarly, that like Job, his name became proT 



e2 



