38 LINNEAN GENERA. 



an oyster, and took out o( it a prodigious number of minute oysters, ail 

 alive, and swimminc;^ nimbly about in the liquor, by means of certain ex- 

 ceeding small organs extending a little uay beyond their shells ; and these 

 he calls their beards. In these little oysters lie could discover the joinings 

 of the shells j and perceived that there were some dead ones, with their 

 shells gaping. These, though so extremely minute, are seen to be as like the 

 inrsre oyster, as one egg is like another. 



As to their size, he computes, that 120 of them in a row would extend an 

 inch ; and consequently, tliat a globular body, whose diameter is an inch, 

 would, if they were also round, be equal to 1,728,000 of them. He reckons 

 3000 or 4000 are in one oyster, and found many of the embryo oysters among 

 the brairds ; some fastened thereto by slender filaraents, and others lying 

 loose, he likewise found animalcules in the liquor 500 times less than tlie 

 embryo oysters. 



Genus 15.— ANOMIA. 



Animal an emarginate siliate strap-sbaped body, with bristles 

 or f'riiigea affi.xed to the upper valve ; arms two, linear, longer 

 than the body, connivent, projecting alternate on the valve and 

 ciliate on each side, the fringe affi.xed to each valve ; shell 

 bivalve, inequivalve, one of the valves flattish, the other gibbous 

 at the base with a produced beak, generally curved over the 

 hinge; one of the valves often perforated near the base j hinge 

 with a linear prominent cicatrix, and a lateral tooth placed 

 within, but in the flat valve on the very margin -, two bony 

 rays for the base of the animal. Plate VII. fig. 15. 



Anomia Undulata. — The Waved Anomia. Plate VII. fig. 

 \o. Sub-orbicular, with fine irregular, undulated, longitudinal, 

 smooth striae, crossing transverse curved ones ; inside pearly 

 shining green. One and a-half inch wide. Inhabits the Bri- 

 tish seas. 



Anomia Ephippium. — The Saddle xVnojiia. Plate I. fig. 7. 

 Shell sub-orbicular, irregularly wrinkled, and waved; upper 

 valve convex^ under flat and perforated at the hinge, through 

 which the ligament passes by which it is afiixed to other bodies ; 

 inside pearlaceous, and of various changing colours ; green, pur- 

 pie, violet or yellow. 



Often to be met with adherins? to the common oyster, or ostrea maxima. 



a Base, 7?» ligament perforation. 



The Anomiae inhabit the ocean. The animal attaches itself to fuci, shells, 

 stones, and other extraneous bodies at the bottom of the sea : they are 

 generally affixed by a testaceous plug, which adheres to one of the muscles 

 of the animal and pasies through the perforation in the flat valve. 



