131 



banks and Gaspd Bay, northward to Hudson Strait and Greenland. Verrill 

 says that he has dredged but one specimen of it on the New England coast 

 (off Casco Bay, 65 fathoms), and it has been taken on the Le Have Bank, 

 N.S., by Smith and Harger. In the Bay of Fundy and Northumberland 

 Strait its place is taken by the finely ribbed variety of A. undata. The 

 specimens from Gaspe Bay and the (xaspe peninsula that were identified 

 with A. sulcata by Sir J. W. Dawson, in 1858, and by Bell, in 1859, and 

 with A. undata by the writer, in 1869, are all forms of A. compressa, L. 

 The statement made on page 236 of Sir J. W. Dawson's memoir on the "Ice 

 Age in Canada," on the authority of the writer, to the effect that " I regard 

 this as As^tarte lactea, Brod. and Sby., and A. semisidcata, Leach ; but as 

 probably distinct, as Astartes go, from A. borealis (:= A. arctica), is mis- 

 placed. It was intended to refer to the species which Sir William calls 

 Astarte arctica, var. lactea, and not to that which he identifies with A. 

 elliptica. 



In a fossil state, A. coini^ressa has been found at Portland, Maine, the 

 Saguenay and Labrador. 



Astarte undata, Gould. 



Astarte undata, Gould (1841) ; provisional name. 



Astarte sulcata, Gould (1841 and 1870) ; not of European writers. 



Crassina latisulca, Hanley (1843). 



Astarte undata, Philippi (1850) ; and Verrill (1872). 



Var. lutea : 



Astarte lutea, Perkins (1869). 



Grand Manan, " common in deep water on muddy bottoms," (Stimpson 

 as A. sulcata, Fleming) ; " very common in Casco Bay and Bay of Fundy, 5 

 to 100 fathoms" (Verrill); Minas Basin (G. T. Kennedy); Passamaquoddy 

 Bay (Ganong) ; Annapolis Basin, abundant (Verkruzen) ; Halifax Harbour 

 (J. M. Jones, as A. sulcata, Fleming) ; Northumberland Strait (Whiteaves). 

 Not known to occur as far to the northward as Miramichi Bay. 



It has long been known that there are two well marked forms of this 

 species, though they pass insensibly into each other. The typical form, 

 upon which Hanley based his C. latisulca, has distant and comparatively 

 few concentric ribs. The other form, or \'ar. lutea (which Verrill identifies 

 with A. lutea, Perkins) has rather more numerous concentric ribs, and more 

 closely resembles the British A. sulcata. In the Bay of Fundy and in the 

 Minas Basin, both forms occur together, but in Nortliumberland Strait, so 

 far as the writer can remember, it is onh' the var. hitea that has been 

 found. 



