some new and peculiar Mollusca. 435 



the publication of my last volume on British Conchology, had 

 the opportunity of comparing a great many living specimens 

 of all ao-es and sizes of L. horealis, Woodward, from various 

 parts and depths of the North Atlantic and Mediterranean, 

 with an equally extensive series of the fossil L. minuta, Phi- 

 lippi, I am now quite satisfied that they are one and the same 

 species. The differential characters noticed by me are very 

 variable. The name minuta must therefore be substituted for 

 horealis. My L. pygmaia, from Corsica, is the young of this 

 species, as well as L. tenuis of Seguenza, from the Straits of 



Messina. 



Malletia excisa^ Philippi. 



Nucula excisa, Phil. MoU. Sic. ii. p. 40, tab. xv. f. 4. 



Station 9, 1750 fms. ; 12, 1450 fms. One living specimen 

 and some valves. ' Porcupine ' Exp., 1869, off the north- 

 western coast of Ireland, 1443 fms. Fossil in Calabria (Phi- 

 lippi) ; Zanclean formation at Messina (Seguenza) ! 



A remarkable and beautiful species. The transverse striae 

 are rather more numerous and close-set in the recent than in 

 fossil specimens. The ligament in this, as well as in other 

 species of the genus Malletia of Desmoulins {= Solenella, 

 Sowerby, = Cfe?^oco«c/^rt, Gray), is wholly external ; in M. ex- 

 cisa it extends on both sides of the beaks. 



The present species belongs to a section or group which 

 Messrs. Adams have designated under the generic name Neilo. 

 Desmoulins and Sowerby published their two genera in the 

 same year, 1832 ; but the Number of the 'Actes ' of the Lm- 

 nean Society of Bordeaux in which the former described and 

 figured Malletia bears date the 15th of February, while the 

 Number of the ' Proceedings ' of the Zoological Society of 

 London in which the latter described Solenella is dated 

 December 11. Sowerby considered his genus to belong to 

 the Solen family. No one seems to have noticed the cartilage 

 and its corresponding pit or depression in the hinge. 



Malletia cuneata^, Jeffr. 

 Shell obliquely oblong, inequilateral, compressed, thin, 

 semitransparent, glossy and somewhat nacreous: sculpture 

 none, except slight and irregular lines of growth : colour 

 whitish, under a thin and pale yellowish-brown epidermis : 

 margins sloping gradually on the back towards each end, 

 rounded on the anterior side, bluntly angular and wedge-shaped 

 on the posterior side, and gently curved in front : leaks situate 



* Wedge-shaped. 



