13 



Shell Life 



Banded Ve 



with white. 



The Banded Venus (V. fasciata) has a soHd shell 

 with sliarp-edged concentric ribs, variable in colour 

 through yellow, pink, red, to brown, 

 marked by several rays of darker tints. 

 The margins of the shell inside are 

 beautifully milled, except just below 

 the ligament. The animal has its 

 mantle bordered with red and fringed 

 The short yellow tubes are united, save 

 at the tips, where they are fringed with white. The 

 thick, white foot is lance-sliaped. It is a generally 

 distributed species, occurring on all our coasts, at all 

 depths, among gravel, sand, and nullipore. The Pale 

 Venus (K carina) is very similar to the last, but 

 much larger (IJ inches across), tlie ribs on the shell 

 more plate-like, and less robust, more strongly scored 

 between tlie ribs, more unicolorous and pale. Of 

 wide distribution, but only local occurrence, on sandy 

 ground, from 5 to 90 fathoms. 



The Warty Venus (1^. verrucosa) is still larger than 

 the Pale Venus, and an advance is made in the 

 passage of the ribs to concentric ridges which are, in 

 this species, broken into wart-like 

 irregularities, especially towards 

 the hinder margin. From the 

 beaks to the lower margin, crossing 

 as it were beneath the concentric 



rido^es, run a o-reat number of 



Warty Venus 

 (one-fourth nat. size) 



evenly and closely set ribs, which 



are more evident in the older 



portion of the valves where the ridges are less 



prominent. The lower margin is milled inside, as 



shown by the figure of the interior of a left valve. 



