VENUS. Sl 
statement in the ‘Museum Ulric’ that the species is both 
smaller and smoother than V. literata. Our author, on the 
contrary, had intended to call that charming shell the Venus 
meleagris, as is evidenced by that name being written on an 
example of it in his collection. A marked specimen of the 
V. rotundata of Linneus (V. deta, Poli, Test. Sicil. pl. 21, f. 2) 
is still preserved in his cabinet, possesses the required charac- 
teristics mentioned in the ‘Systema,’ and fairly enough agrees 
with the details in the ‘Museum Ulrice.’ It is the Tapes 
(Venus) leta also of Philippi’s ‘Enumeratio Molluscorum 
Siciliz ’ (not of Lin.), a very variable shell which has received 
many appellations from Lamarck (florida, bicolor, &c.). Since 
it was utterly impossible to identify the Linnean species, 
without having seen the type, the name rotundata has no claim 
to precedence. 
Venus Deeussata, 
From the locality “India,” I had anticipated one of the 
several allied exotic species (Kiimmer. Nachtr. Conch. Rudolst. 
pl. 3, f. 7, 8) delineated in Sowerby’s admirable ‘ Thesaurus.’ 
None such exist, however, in the Linnean collection; where, 
on the contrary, the Tapes (Venus) decussata of the Mediter- 
ranean (Chemn. Conch Cab. vol. vu. pl. 43, f. 455, 456) is dis- 
tinctly marked for this species. Judging from that circum- 
stance, the reading was perhaps ‘anus minime retusus,” not 
“anus minimus, retusus,”’ as it stands in the ‘Systema,’ nor 
“anus minimus non retusus” as it appears in the ‘Museum 
Ulrice.’ 
e Penus vivginea, 
The “ pallide incarnata’’ being an unusual colouring for a 
Venus, has afforded a happy clue to the recognition of this 
delicately-tinted shell. The presence of Tapes virginea (Brown, 
Ill. Conch. G. B, pl. 37, f. 9) in the Linnean collection, where, 
with the exception of a flesh-coloured variety of the V. rimularis 
of Lamarck, it alone corresponds with the description in the 
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