PECTEN. 287 



colouring : its hinge-margin is not peculiarly plicated : its 

 rim is almost always crenated. 



The painting is very beautiful, and displays an infinity 

 of patterns ; the mass of individuals, however, are of a 

 brownish red, and usually mottled or variegated with 

 whitish patches, streaks, spots, festoons, clouds, or 

 specks, occasionally also with chocolate-coloured rays or 

 stains, and generally with a brighter orange-red tint upon 

 the acute beaks. One of the most beautiful specimens we 

 possess is of an uniform lilac tint in one valve and snowy 

 white upon the other ; in another specimen wavy fillets of 

 livid red encircle the more convex of the two white valves; 

 in a third individual three yellow rays are apparent upon a 

 ground of purplish liver-colour. A very charming and 

 rare variation displays linear fillets of white upon a ground 

 of reddish chocolate colour. 



One of our larger specimens measured nearly an inch in 

 breadth, and only one line less in length ; three quarters of 

 an inch, however, is a fair average width for examples. 

 We may remark, also, that in the ribbed variety, the lower 

 margin is so waved as occasionally to become pentagonal ; 

 and sometimes is so suddenly bent in, that the shell as- 

 sumes the appearance of a shallow box. 



The animal has a white margined mantle, mottled with 

 dusky or brown rays. The ocelli are brown. The body 

 is usually of a bright red colour, occasionally of a creamy 

 white. It is a favourite food of flat-fish. 



This pretty shell is found on all our coasts, though much 

 scarcer in some localities than in others. It ranges from 

 twelve to sixty fathoms, frequenting sea-bottoms of shells, 

 gravel and sandy mud. In from eighteen to twenty-five 

 fathoms is its favourite depth. 



It ranges throughout the Celtic and North European 



