62 



WEST COAST SHELLS 



large pin-head. Somewhat triangular, yellowish, 

 marked with brown chevrons. 



Chiamydoconcha orcutti^ Dall, Orcutt's Cloak- 

 shell, is a singular mollusk, which was discovered by 

 Charles R. Orcutt, in False Bay near San Diego. 

 It lives under stones. It is a bivalve mollusk, but 

 the shells, singularly enough, are internal, and very 

 minute when compared with the size of the body, 

 which is about an inch long. The animal is shaped 

 somewhat like a cowry, and the flesh is translucent 

 and jelly-like. 



Under the Leptonidae we 

 have quite a number of shells, 

 most of them of small size. 

 Figure 36 gives an enlarged 

 view of Erycina compressa^ 

 Dall, the Compressed Erycina, 

 Fig.36, x!(*) which has a delicate, white, 



compressed shell, covered, with a thin, wrinkled 

 periostracum. It occurs in Bering Sea and south- 

 ward as far as Sitka. Erycina is still another name 

 for Venus. 



In Figure 37 we have a singular combination. 

 The greater part of the picture is a ventral view of 

 the Mud Prawn, Gcbia pugetensis^ Dana, which 

 lives in the waters of Puget Sound, and is very ex- 

 pert in burrowing in the soft sediment. But attached 

 to its abdomen is a little mollusk, represented of 

 natural size, which the prawn carries along wherever 

 it goes, whether willingly or not I do not know. 

 This little mollusk is named Erycina rugifera^ Cpr., 

 the Rough Erycina. It was formerly called Lepton 



