200 A BEAUTIFUL SHELL. 



a clam, but for this red-lined one my opinions quickly 

 changed. 



Imagine two tubes made of the finest pink and 

 white silk, stretched over delicate hoops arranged at 

 regular intervals; then think of them as endowed 

 w4th life and waving with a graceful motion through 

 the water, and you will have a faint idea of their 

 exquisite texture and elegant appearance. 



I kept my mollusk as long as possible in the jar of 

 water, and then, not bearing to part with him, I 

 quickly deprived him of life and took his shell home 

 to my cabinet. It now lies open before me. Within 

 it is of the purest white, resembling delicate porce- 

 lain. The pallial sinus is large, the hinge-teeth 

 small, and behind them is a thickened portion of 

 shell about half an inch long, which terminates quite 

 abruptly, exposing part of the ligament. 



According to Doctor Carpenter this species has been 

 collected both in Puget sound and at San Diego. It 

 completes our list of the TellinidcF^ which began 

 with Semele decisa^ and it is a worthy ending for our 

 representatives of this beautiful order of the Plaited- 

 gilled mollusks. 



Once more I will quote from Captain Geo. Dixon's 

 "Voyage Round the World," published in London, 

 in 1789: 



At the mouth of Cook's River, Lat. 59° 61^, are manj- spe- 

 cies of shell-fish, most of them, I presume, nondescript. 

 ■^ " ^ For a repast our men preferred a large species of the 

 Sole7i genus, which the}' got in quantity, and were easih' dis- 

 covered bj' 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 



