ASTARTE. 319 



species of shells. The recent diffusion of this species 

 appears to have been southward : I cannot find it enu- 

 merated in any list of Arctic or even Scandinavian 

 mollusca ; but it has been recorded by Mr. M f Andrew 

 and myself as Mediterranean, and by the former as 

 dredged at the Canaries. It is probably a pliocene fossil 

 of Apulia under von Munster's name of A. laevigata, 

 and an inhabitant of the iEgean (in 70-112 fathoms) as 

 the A, pusilla of Forbes. 



The animal of this diminutive and pretty species has 

 escaped notice. The shells are often drilled by the 

 smaller Muricidce. When fresh they are semitrans- 

 parent, so that the marginal indentation is visible out- 

 side. The young are transversely oval, and in shape 

 not unlike Pisidium pusillum. The hinge is now and 

 then reversed, as in A. compressa. Probably such mon- 

 sters are not exceedingly rare, but may not have been 

 searched for. 



Turton proposed to make another genus (GoodaUia) 

 out of the present species and its plain-edged variety 

 (Mactra minutissima, Montagu), from an erroneous 

 notion that the ligament was internal. Two or three 

 more generic and specific names have been bestowed on 

 the same species by different writers, all of which may 

 be treated as obsolete. 



A. crebricostata of Forbes inhabits the Arctic seas : it 

 has never been taken alive, or even in a suspiciously 

 fresh state, on our coasts. Valves have been dredged 

 by Mr. M 'Andrew off the west coast of Shetland, and 

 also by that gentleman, Mr. Barlee, and myself at dif- 

 ferent times in the Hebrides. The species nearest to it 

 is A. sulcata, from which it differs in its more oblique 

 outline and compressed form, finer and more constantly 

 numerous ribs, and its peculiar epidermis, which is 



