42 ANOMIAD A. 
the lower half of the mantle; this organ has been mistaken 
for a large foot, but its soft, pulpy, granular composition 
shows that it is the organ of reproduction, and the milky 
humours arising from various pyriform membranes, in the 
genial season, which are only then discoverable, are probably 
the male organs of fecundation. The colour of the ovarium, 
as well as of the body in general, is very various; sometimes 
they are of a pure vermilion, and from that, passing into every 
hue of that colour, as well as into all the shades of yellow and 
pale red-brown. I have seen all these colours in groups of 
the Anomia ephippium, on the same Pecten; whilst im others 
all the objects on the same shell have maintained a uniformity 
of colour. The same discrepancies prevail m 4. aculeata, 
A. striolata, A. cylindrica, and A. squamula. These differ- 
ences, combined with the various markings, shapes, spies, 
ribs, and striz, generally resultmg from similar markings on 
the substances on which the shells are fixed, have doubtless 
been the cause of the multiplication of the species, as in all 
the varieties enumerated, not excepting the A. striata, which 
is the A. patelliformis of the ‘ British Mollusca,’ the organs, 
as far as they have been examined, have not presented marked 
differences, except in colour. The liver is always of the va- 
rious shades of green, placed under the beaks, at the centre of 
the dorsal range; the passage from the mouth to the stomach 
is a short gullet, and these organs are situate under, and 
partly surrounded by the liver ; from it the intestine descends 
to the centre of the body, where it makes some turns, then 
ascends through it and the ovarium to the dorsal range, and 
issuing therefrom, passes behind the body and the posterior 
sinuation of the ovary, slightly attached to their membranes, 
and debouches at some distance from the base of the posterior 
ventral range, as an uncovered rectum. 
In most bivalves the muscular impressions are supposed to 
assist specific distinction, but this idea is fallacious with re- 
spect to the Anomie. In this genus the circumscribed line 
in the convex valve contains the impressions of the muscular 
mass, which divides itself into three cicatrices, one by itself 
and the others on the right and left of it; these impressions 
