422 VENERID^. 



coloured than those from the north ; and examples from 

 very deep water off Zetland, taken by Mr. M'Andrew, are 

 of a chalky whiteness. Abroad it ranges throughout the 

 European seas, and in the Mediterranean has been taken 

 as deep as one hundred and thirty fathoms (E. F.). As 

 a fossil it is known from the Coralline Crag ; during 

 the formation of which stratum it inhabited our area, and 

 has never since departed. This long and continuous 

 range in time is coincident with its wide distribution at 

 present. 



V. PALLIDA, Turton. 



Venus pallida, Turton, Dithyra Brit. p. 150, pi. 10, f. 5. — Fleming, Brit. 

 Anim. p. 448. — Brit. Marine Conch, p. 90, 



We found two specimens thus named in Dr. Turton's 

 collection, of which one was manifestly a very worn 

 example of V. striatula, and still exhibited traces of its pe- 

 culiar colouring. The other, which we regard as the sole 

 type, being the individual delineated and described by the 

 author, presents to the eye certain features which distin- 

 guish it as well from striatula, its nearest congener appa- 

 rently, as from any of the very numerous members of this 

 extensive genus wdth which we are acquainted. We hesitate, 

 however, to consider it a distinct British species on the au- 

 thority of the single worn example said to have been found 

 at Dawlish. 



The shell is triangular heart-shaped, decidedly inequila- 

 teral, and of an uniform yellowish Avhite ; the valves are 

 thin but opaque, and rather compressed except at the um- 

 bones, which are moderately ventricose ; their outer surface 

 is but slightly glossy ; the interior is entirely white, and its 

 margin is most finely and closely crenated. The raised 

 concentric stria? (their elevation is scarcely sufficient for 



