PECTEN. 67 



cures its food, viz. by rapidly opening the valves of its 

 shell and clapping them together with an audible noise 

 ten or twelve times in succession. It then kept them 

 wide open and for a much longer time than suited the 

 patience of the great zoologist. By this violent agita- 

 tion of the water a fresh supply of animalcula may be 

 brought to its insatiable maw. He adds that it can 

 squirt the water out of a vessel half an ell high ; but I 

 have never seen it perform such an extraordinary feat. 

 The jet of water would be at least fifty times the length 

 of the animal. 



A slight and pardonable liberty has been taken in 

 changing the original spelling of the specific name from 

 tigerinus to tigrinus. This shell was called P. parvus 

 by Da Costa, P. domesticus (used of course in the sense 

 of native) by Chemnitz, and P. obsoletus by Pennant. 



N* g. 6. P. TESTJJ*, Bivona. | 



P. Testa, (Bivona) Philippi, Moll. Sic. i. p. 81, t. v. f. 17. P. furtivus, 

 Lov. Ind. Moll. Scand. p. 31. 



SHELL somewhat resembling P. tigrinus in shape, but 

 rounder and much more depressed, rather thin and glossy : 

 sculpture, minute longitudinal and transverse striae, which are 

 arranged as in the last species, but they are more regular and 

 never forked ; they are deeply punctured at the points of 

 intersection ; sometimes there are also from 30 to 35 delicate 

 ribs, which become scaly or prickly where they are crossed by 

 the transverse striae: colour yellow, orange, brown, purple, 

 pink, or occasionally white, usually diversified by streaks, rays, 

 blotches, spots, diagonal lines, and other markings of the above 

 hues : margins rounded in front, and forming an arc of two- 

 thirds of a circle in consequence of the lateral slopes towards 

 the beaks commencing higher up than in P. tigrinus ; byssal 

 slope finely toothed : beaks prominent but not much raised : 

 ears unequal, those on the byssal side being about twice as 

 large as the other pair ; all of them have several fine ribs, 



* Named in honour of S r . Testa, a conchologist at Panormo in Sicily. 



