190 GALEOMMIDJE. 



in a raised beach, at the distance of about a league from 

 the sea, with other shells belonging to species that are 

 still living in that part of the Mediterranean. 



Mr. Clark informed me that he gave his dredger, 

 Bransconibe, a guinea for the first specimen taken at 

 Exmouth. Branscombe^s account was that he captured 

 the same day a second specimen, and laid it on one of 

 the thwarts of his boat, until the jar which contained its 

 intended companion in captivity could be got ready, 

 but that in the mean time the free specimen crawled 

 away and escaped overboard. This is like Mr. Stutch- 

 bury's story of the once rare Trigonia pectinata, several 

 specimens of which he unaccountably lost, before he was 

 aware of its habit of taking a long leap, and he wrongly 

 accused his dredger of secreting them. As, however, it 

 was not Branscombe's interest to keep back any shell 

 from his liberal employer, who paid him much better 

 than any one else, the disappearance of the Galeomma 

 in the mode above related seems very probable. Scacchi, 

 Philippi, Deshayes, Mittre, and Clark have severally 

 described the animal. The last-named author says, 

 " A fasciculus of fine filaments issues from the byssal 

 fissure in the foot, which fix the animal so firmly to 

 whatever it is placed on, as to require some force to dis- 

 turb it ; in fact the byssus is discarded, by being alto- 

 gether withdrawn from a slit in the foot, whenever an 

 attempt is made to remove the animal by force ; but 

 though we repeated the operation several times, the 

 little creature did not appear to be injured or less lively, 

 but, as soon as it had crawled to some distance, we had 

 the good fortune to witness the formation of a new 

 byssus, which was effected by the discharge of a light- 

 green gelatinous opake matter from the fissure at the 

 heel of the foot, which by its ponderosity resolved itself 



