76 



Shell Life 



Papery Lantern-shell 

 a, ossicle; h, ditto in position 



animal varies in colour from white to pale brown. 

 The siphons are short and wide, marked at their 

 extremities with faint lines. 

 The foot has a bluish tinge. It 

 is found in sandy bays a little 

 below extreme low- water mark. 

 The Large Lantern - shell {T. 

 jnihescens) is larger, more solid, 

 and more oval ; the left valve 

 smaller and flatter than the 

 right. The surface is marked 

 with fine granulations, and the part near the 

 hinge is concentrically ribbed. The colour is dull 

 pale yellow. It is nearly 4 inches across. It is 

 found only in deep water off the coasts of Dorset, 

 Devon, and Cornwall. The Convex Lantern-shell 

 (T. convexa) is swollen, almost four-sided, thinner 

 than the last - named, but solid and glossy, and 

 with more delicate ornamentation — the granula- 

 tions in wavy lines. Its colour is pale brown. It 

 measures a little over 2 inches. It burrows deeply 

 in muddy sand, in from 4 to 70 fathoms of water, on 

 all our coasts, but living specimens are sometimes 

 washed up the beaches. The Little Lantern-shell 

 (T. distorta) is the smallest of the British species, 

 and measures little more than half an inch. It is 

 very variable in shape, and, owing to its habit of 

 dwellino^ in the burrows of Saxicava, and in rock 

 crevices, it is usually distorted. It is proportionately 

 of more solid structure than its congeners, of a white 

 colour and without any gloss. The dingy brown 

 epidermis gets rubbed off in its favoured haunts, and 

 can only be detected at the edges of the shell. The 



