ASTARTE. 117 



Oenus ASTARTE, Sowerby. 181G. 



Shell rounded, sub-equipartite, compressed, thick ; hinge with 

 two strong, diverging, cardinal teeth on one valve, and two very 

 unequal ones on the other, or only one large one ; pallial impression 

 simple ; ligament exterior. 



Astarte castanea. 



Fig. 44. 



Shell sub-orbicular, with prominent and nearly eenti'al beaks; lunule deeply 

 excavated ; surface very sli^'htly waved, covered with a chestnut-brown ej^ider- 

 mis ; margin crenulated witliin. 



Venus rastdiim, Say, Journ. Acad. Nat. Sc. ii. 273 (Au<j: 1822). 

 Astarte casuiuca, Say, Amer. Couch, pi. 1. — Totten, Sillimaii's Journ. xxviii. fif;. 2. — 



De Kay, Nat. Hist. New York, 220, pi. 28, fig. 280. — Philippi, Ab!)ild. t. 5, fig. 



2. — Conrad, Amor. Mar. Conch, t. 17, fig. 45. — Hanley, Rec. Sh. Suppl. t. 9, 



fig. 27. — Philippi, Abbild. ii. .'j7 (A^turti!], t. 1, fig. 2. — Forbes and Hanl. Br. 



MoU. i. 470. —Gray, Cat. Br. Mus. (Br. Moll.) 1(52. 

 Cnis-iina castanea, La^i. An. sans Vert. 2(1 cd. vi. 2.")8. — Hanley, Recent Sliells, i. 88. 

 Venui sulcata, Montagu, Test. Brit. 131. — Maton and Rackett, Lin Trans, viii. 81, 



t. 2, fig. 2. 

 Ci-assina sulcata. Brown, lib Conch. 96, t. 38, iig. 10. 



Shell thick and ponderous, sub-orI)icular, or sul)-triaiigular, the 

 beaks nearly central, and much elevated, generally eroded ; the 

 areola in front of the beaks is ovate-lanceolate, 

 short, broad, deeply excavated, very smooth, and 

 darker colored ; posterior slope nearly straight, 

 with a long, narrow, lanceolate depression ; basal 

 margin regularly rounded, thick ; surface very 

 slightly undulated at the stages of growtli, cov- 

 ered with a thick, chestnut-colored epidermis, 

 wrinkled and stained with black posteriorly, with i msimun. 



alternately paler and darker zones ; ligament small 

 and fcelde. Hinge very strong, the hinge-margin very broad, bear- 

 ing on the right valve one stout tooth, with a pit on each side ; on 

 the left valve two teeth somewhat diverging, with a deep pit between 

 them for the reception of the opposite tooth ; cavity small ; muscu- 

 lar impressions deep, elongated, united by a direct pallial impres- 

 sion ; margin in adult shells regularly crenulated. Length, one 

 inch ; height, one inch ; breadth, eleven twentieths of an inch. 



