VENUS. 329 



remarkably deep : muscular scars oval and distinctly marked. 

 L. 2 (nearly). B. 2. 



HABITAT : Sandy bays, and occasionally in deeper 

 water, from one extremity to the other of the British 

 seas. Bright- coloured specimens are common in the 

 " Coral-sand " dredged in Bantry Bay for manure. 

 Grainger has noticed it as occurring in the postglacial 

 bed at Belfast, and Smith in the Clyde beds ; it is also 

 a Coralline Crag fossil. Its most northern limit appears 

 to be Finmark, and the most southern Sicily, although 

 it is possible that Adanson described and figured it 

 from the Isle of Goree, under the name of " Le Co- 

 tan." M' Andrew obtained specimens at low-water 

 in Vigo Bay and at Gibraltar ; and Scandinavian au- 

 thors give depths varying from 3 to 50 fathoms. Phi- 

 lippi records it as found in the South-Italian tertiary 

 strata. 



This species was discovered by Lister at Guernsey, 

 which locality (as well as Norway) Linne quotes in the 

 ' Systema Naturse.' Clark says " the animal is shy and 

 apathetic ; the locomotion consists in screwing the shell 

 on its axis, and turning it from one side to the other." 

 M 'Andrew has seen it sold in Vigo market for eating. 

 The shell is now and then distorted. I have specimens 

 obliquely twisted in the direction of the anterior side, 

 so as to be rather longer than broad, and another which 

 is inequivalve. In one specimen, which had been in the 

 earlier stages of growth tinted with pink rays, the sub- 

 sequent layers are of a uniform yellowish-white, owing 

 probably to a defect of the special colouring-gland. The 

 cross or longitudinal striae are easily effaced, and seldom 

 perceptible even in living shells. The largest specimens 

 are found in Shetland. 



It is the Pectunculus capillaceus of Da Costa, V. lenti- 



