130 TELLINIDA. 
the ovary anterior, running to the lower part of the body, is 
at this season (July) full of white ova in various stages of 
maturation. The stylet and stomachal attritor are present ; 
indeed we believe that they may be found im every bivalve. 
These notes, with those on 7’. solidula, suggest the query,— 
ought not the two, and any other of similar branchial struc- 
ture, to be removed from the typical Telling, to a distinct 
Tellinidan genus? The singular character of the sigle com- 
pound branchial plate on each side, their oblique, almost 
vertical position, together with the form, disposition and 
enormous size of the two pair of triangular palpi, so entirely 
different in the Telline of the first section, would appear to 
sanction such a procedure. 
T. sotipuLa, Pulteney. 
T. solidula, Brit. Moll. i. p. 304, pl. 20. f. 6. 
Animal suboval, thick ; mantle of strong and firm texture, 
tumid at the margins, which have a fine short lead-coloured 
fringe, closed posteriorly, and forming two very long hyaline 
siphons; the anal one turns upward, and is often exserted to 
almost twice the length of the shell, plain at the orifice ; the 
branchial is usually less extended, and has 4—6 very minute 
dentations at the aperture ; in the protrusion of the tubes the 
animal is very capricious, often exserting the branchial far 
beyond the anal one and vice versd, which has led authors into 
descriptive mistakes. The siphons are disunited from their 
bases. The foot is white, very large, thick and fleshy, of a 
lanceolate shape, but not very long and pointed, geniculated, 
and without byssal groove. The branchial apparatus is cu- 
rious, and a departure from the Tellina type ; it consists of a 
single rather elongated branchial plate, on each side, situated 
towards the posterior half of the animal; it is fixed to the 
dorsal range by its base running obliquely, indeed almost 
vertically from the dorsal to the ventral range, becoming 
joined to its fellow under the posterior and smaller part of the 
body, by a permanent membrane. The whole area of the 
plate is well fixed, the two sides being scarcely free at the 
