60 CONCHOLOGIST’S COMPANION. 
coast, which borders the Frozen ocean. They are 
evidently a species unknown in the subjacent sea, 
and were most probably brought thither by such 
marine birds as resort to the Arctic flats, for the 
purpose of eating them at leisure. 
The genus Anomia, or Antique Lamp, a general 
inhabitant of the European, American, and African 
oceans, as well as the Mediterranean and Northern 
seas, evinces in his construction, both an inconvenience 
and a compensation. The shells are generally thin, 
delicate, and semi-transparent, peculiarities rarely 
discoverable, in such as inhabit the wide ocean. 
But in order to remedy this inconvenience, or to 
prevent their slender habitations from being ruptured 
in the violent tossings of the waves, a small perfora- 
tion is obvious near the beak, and through this a 
strong ligament is protruded, whereby the little 
sailor securely fixes himself to different marine sub- 
stances, such as to fuci, crabs, the spines of echini, 
and especially to the stars of the Madrepora Prolifera. 
The shells evince considerable variety, and some of 
them are singularly beautiful. The Snake-head 
(A. caput serpentis), when seen in profile, resembles 
an antique lamp, and the 4. psittacea is very similar 
in its construction to the forked or curved beak of a 
parrot; while the 4. placenta, or Cake-Anomia, is 
capable of being rendered so transparent, that it is 
