OTHER BIVALVE MOLLUSKS 



103 



Fig. 80, X h 



north, though it is found to some extent much farther 

 to the south, probably in deeper water. Broken shell 

 used to be washed up on the Cliff House beach in 

 San Francisco. 

 As this shell 



was first fig- 

 ured long ago 



I will quote 



its description 



from the 



words of the 



discoverer, 



Capt. George 



Dixon, who wrote an exceedingly interesting book 



entitled "A Voyage Round the World," which was 



published in London, A. D. 1789. This extract is 



said by Dr. P. P. Carpenter to be probably the "first 



description on record of mollusks from the Pacific 



shores of N. America by the original collector." 



"At the mouth of Cook's River are many species of shell-fish, 

 most of them, I presume, nondescript. For a repast our men pre- ' 

 ferred a large species of the Solen genus, which they got in 

 quantity, and were easily discovered by their spouting up the 

 water as the men walked over the sands where they inhabited : 

 as I suppose it to be a new kind I have given a figure of it in 

 the annexed plate. 'Tis a thin brittle shell, smooth within and 

 without : one valve is furnished with two front and two lateral 

 teeth ; the other has one front and one side tooth, which slip 

 in between the others in the opposite valve : from the teeth in 

 each valve proceeds a strong rib, which extends to above half- 

 way across the shell and gradually loses itself towards the edge, 

 which is smooth and sharp. The color of the outside is white, 

 circularly, but faintly zoned with violet, and is covered with a 

 smooth yellowish-brown epidermis, which appears darkest where 

 the ^o.ues are : the inside is wbite^ slightly zoned, and tinted with 



