VENUS. 409 



Venus Pennantii, Forbes, Malac. Monens. p. 52. 

 „ laminosa,* Turt. Conch, Diction, p. 233 (except the description of the 

 hinge, which is copied from Montagu) ; DithjTa Brit. p. 

 148, pi. 10, f. 4.— Brit. Marine Conch, p. 89.— Hanl. Re- 

 cent Shells, suppl. pi. 16, f. 11. 

 „ r?/Y/osa, Penn. Brit. Zool. vol. iv. p 95, pi. 6Q, f. 50. — Flem. Brit. 

 Anim. p. 448.— Brown, Ilhist. Conch. G. B. p. 90, pi. 36, f. 14. 

 „ Prideauxiana, Couch, Cornish Fauna, pt. 2, p. 26. — Macgilliv. Moll. 



Aberdeenshire, p. 266. 

 „ sulcata. Brown, 111. Conch. G. B. p. 90, pi. 36, f. 12. 

 „ costuta, Brown, III. Conch. G. B. p. 90, pi. 36, f. 13. 



A reference to the tenth edition of the " Systema 

 Naturae" will convince our readers that the Venus gallina 

 of Linnaeus [Chemn. Conch. Cab. vol. vi. p. 811, pi. SO, f. 

 808, 309, 810.— PoLi, Test. Sicil. pi. 21, f. 5, 6, 7.— 

 Philippi, Moll. Sicil. vol. i. p. 44, and vol. ii. p. 84. — 

 Hanl. Recent Shells, suppl. pi. 16, f. 42,] is the shell 

 so named by those who have illustrated the concho- 

 logy of the Mediterranean. It is perhaps a matter of 



* Venus laminosa, Mont. Test. Brit. Suppl. p. 38. — Laskey, Memoirs Wer- 

 nerian Soc. vol. i. p. 384, pi. 8, f. 16. — Brown, lUust. 

 Conch. G. B. p. 90, pi. 37, f. 14, 15 (copied from last). 



We have not ventured to assert the identity of the V. laminosa of Montagu 

 and Laskey with that of Turton, owing principally to the dentition assigned to 

 the former in the Testacea Britannica. Nevertheless, it is highly probable that 

 the general belief of collectors (the tradition, if we may so term it) is not un- 

 founded, and that the species was established upon an aged example of that 

 variety of striatula termed ruc/osa by Pennant and Brown, in which some pecu- 

 liar distortion of the cardinal edge misled the author and induced him to attribute 

 to it the hinge of a Cytlierea. That no known species of the latter genus [tortuosa 

 is, perhaps, the nearest) will accord with the figure in the Wernerian Memoirs, 

 which is exactly like a swollen example of the produced (but generally com- 

 pressed) variety of striatula is an additional argument in favour of the tradi- 

 tionary hypothesis. We subjoin the original description. 



" Shell ovate, with numerous concentric laminar ridges, very little reflected ; 

 these ridges are not quite regular nor equidistant, but so thin as to be almost 

 membranaceous ; between the ridges about the umbonal region where a natural 

 decortication has taken place, it is finely striated in the longitudinal direction, 

 which shews that younger specimens are more generally furnished with such 

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