CARDIADiE. COCKLE. 37 



Mr. Blackburn, in his ' Travelling in Spain in the Pre- 

 sent Day/ says, that one of the best dishes at Seville is 

 composed of rice, pimentoes, cockles (including sand 

 and shells), well boiled in oily gravy. 



Cardium rusticum or tuberculatum, Linnseus. 

 Red-nosed Cockle. — Shell nearly 3 inches in length, and 

 2 in breadth j very solid, subrotund, opaque, with 21 or 

 more broad ribs which radiate from the beaks, with 

 knots or tubercles on them, which on the anterior slope 

 are flat, and even wanting in young specimens, and on 

 the posterior side are more pointed and rugged ; the in- 

 terstices between the ribs coarsely striated. Umbones 

 prominent ; beaks incurved. Ligament large, central 

 tooth large, and the lateral teeth remote. 



This large handsome cockle is essentially a Mediter- 

 ranean species, and is rare and local in England. It is 

 found on the Devonshire coast, at Paignton, and occa- 

 sionally at Dawlish, and at certain times of the year, 

 especially in the spring after a gale from the east, num- 

 bers may be gathered. On paying a visit to the Paign- 

 ton sands, for the purpose of shell collecting, in the spring 

 of 1862, the beach was quite strewn with broken single 

 valves of this cockle, and there had evidently been quan- 

 tities of live specimens washed up as well, as we met 

 many persons returning home with their baskets heavily 

 laden with them. 



Cardium rusticum varies in colour, from nearly white 

 to a rich-rufous brown ; sometimes there is a white band 

 round the shell and one of a dark chestnut-brown to- 

 wards the margins. The colouring of the animal is 

 most beautiful, the body being of a pink or pale ver- 

 milion, the mantle yellow or reddish, and the long foot 

 of a most brilliant crimson. This foot terminates in a 



