154 UNIONIDiE. 



fancied he recognized the Solandriau ideal in certain shells 

 taken in the river Kennet, above Newbury, and Wood 

 having cited these two English writers for his Mya Batava, 

 (General Conch, p. 103, pi. 19, f. 1, 2, drawn from a 

 worn Dutch specimen,) the Unio Batavus (a very different- 

 looking shell from one forwarded to us by Dr. Philippi as 

 that of the German writers, yet probably identical), has 

 obtained footing in our English Fauna, first appearing 

 under that specific epithet in Dr. Turton's " Manual of the 

 Land and Freshwater Shells of the British Islands." His 

 figure (pi. 2, f. 10), which, as Mr. Gray justly observes, is 

 more like a jowag Alasmodonta than any other British shell, 

 appears to have been either copied from Wood or Schroter, 

 — with the addition of umbonal wrinkles, — or else to be a 

 filed ^oww pictorum ; it certainly is not taken from his own 

 type (probably foreign, and added to his collection subse- 

 quently), which by the kindness of Mr. Jeffreys has been 

 forwarded to us, and is assuredly the true U. Batavus of 

 the continental conchologists, well represented in Ross- 

 masler's Iconographie, pi. 8, f. 128 a, but is much smaller, 

 not quite measuring an inch and a quarter in length. It 

 agrees somewhat better, except in size and colour (since it 

 is rayed with green lines on a yellowish ground), with Tur- 

 ton's account in the Dithyra Britannica (p. 245), where he 

 states his possession of it, and mentions Oxfordshire as the 

 locality of the species; but differs completely from Montagu's 

 description o^ pictorum, and not a little so from Donovan's 

 figure of that shell, both which latter we are inclined 

 to regard as only varieties of the species correctly so 

 termed. 



