LIOCAKDIUM. 148 



LiocardiurQ Mortoni. 



Shell small, thin, sub-globose, smooth, pale fawn-color, sometimes blotched 

 with dark brown ; witliin striated, bright yellow, Avith a purplisli blotch pos- 

 teriorly. 



Cardinm Morton!, Conrad, Journ. Acad Nat. Se. vi. 259, pi. 11, figs. .5, 6, 7 (1831); 



Sillim. Journ. xxiii. 346 (1833). — De Kav, Nat. Hist. New York, 207, jjl. 23, fig. 251. 



— Stimpson, Shells of New Englaiul, 19. — Smith, JNIoll. of Long Island, 16, and 



in Ann. New York Lye. vii., and Sillim. Journ. xxvii. 283. 

 Liocardium Mortoni, Stimpsox, Check Lists, 2. 



Shell small, thin, obliquely sulj-ovate, siib-giobose ; beaks large 

 and prominent, incurved, nearly central ; posterior part a little pro- 

 duced and directed obliquely downwards ; sur- 

 face giossy, destitute of ribs or radiating lines, ^'"' '^'^^' 

 with fine lines of growth, and an occasional 

 darker z(jne ; color very pale yellowish, cov- 

 ered with a very thin, darker epidermis, 

 thicker and more wrinkled behind ; in young 

 specimens are blotches or zigzag lines of dark 

 fawn-color; teeth well developed ; inside with 



' i . L. Mortoni. 



very faint and minute radiating lines ; mar- 

 gin white, the remainder liright yellow ; there is always a dark pur- 

 plish l)lotcli along the posterior margin, and it is sometimes mot- 

 tled with l)ands and stains of reddish-l)rown on other parts of the 

 interior; muscular impressions superficial. Length of largest spe- 

 cimens one inch ; height, nine tenths of an inch ; breadth, seven 

 teiitlis of an inch. 



The animal is white, and has short, conical siphons, each marked 

 with a circle of l)rown spots, and fringed with numerous cirri 

 which extend far beyond the shell ( S. Smith'). 



Found plentifully about Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and Rhode 

 Island, south of which I cannot learn that it has been found. Ex- 

 tremely abundant at the mouths of creeks and on shallow flats, from 

 low-water mark to two fathoms, Peconic and Gardiner's Bay, Long 

 Island (StiiUk) ; Dartmouth Lakes, Halifax (Wil/is). 



This shell is very closely allied to the C. IcBvigatum of the West 

 Indies, and has no other well-marked distinction than the purple 

 blotch on the posterior margin within, which, so far as I have ob- 

 served, is never wanting in our species, and never present in the 

 West India shell. In the angular markings of the young shells 

 they are similar, and also in their form and color ; but the exterior 



