56 EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSC A. 



ranean species, and is rare and local iri England. Ifc 

 is found on the Devonshire coast, at Paignton, and 

 occasionally at Dawlish, and at certain times of the 

 year, especially in the spring after a gale from the 

 east, numbers may be gathered. On paying a visit to 

 the Paignton 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 quantities 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 

 towards the margins. The colouring of the animal is 

 most beautiful, the body being of a pink or pale 

 vermilion, the mantle yellow or reddish, and the long 

 foot of a most brilliant crimson. This foot terminates 

 in a hooked point, and when stretched to its utmost 

 is nearly four inches in length. It is by means of this 

 organ that the cockle can bury itself in the sands, and 

 also take those wonderful leaps of which we read in 

 Mr. Gosse's interesting work, 'The Aquarium/ and again 

 in his ( A Year at the Shore/ where he mentions that a 

 specimen was seen to throw itself over the gunwale of a 

 boat when laid on the bottom boards. Mr. Gosse 

 states, in this latter work, that the mode of leaping is 

 performed as follows : — " The long taper foot is thrust 

 to its utmost, and feels about for some resisting sur- 

 face, a stone, for instance, which it no sooner feels 

 than the hooked point is pressed stiffly against it, 

 the whole foot, by muscular contraction, is made 

 suddenly rigid, and the entire creature, — mantle, 



