TELLINA fatirostra. 
Wide-beaked Tellen. 
Se ER roc ee 
Order Acephala.—Tribe Dimiaria (Nob.). 
GENERIC CHARACTER.—Lam. Sys. 5, 519. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTER. 
Shell oblong; anterior side narrowed and angulated ; both valves 
glossy, smooth, equally convex, and marked by very delicate 
radiating striz. 
T. testa oblonga, purpurascente, subradiaté, anterius sinuato-angu- 
latd, rostri margine infimo ascendente. Lam. Syst. 5, p. 523. 
Aare ER LT 
Tuere are few groups in Conchology, more particularly 
among the bivalve shells, possessing so great a union of 
delicacy and beauty as the Tellinez ; and perhaps there is 
none in which the species, from their general similarity of 
shape, and variability of colouring, are so little understood. 
For these reasons, we intend to illustrate this elegant genus 
very fully. 
The Telline appear to hold a station with the most 
typical groups of the Bivalve Mollusca; or those in which 
the animal can freely remove, from place to place, by the 
foot. In all such the shells are solid, regular, and not 
attached to other substances. 
We select the Tellina latirostra of Lamarck for our first 
subject. As a species it has not been figured; while the 
original description, which we have transcribed, is so slight, 
that some uncertainty exists as to the precise species in- 
tended by the writer. That to which we here apply the 
name, is certainly very like, as Lamarck observes, to 7. 
rostrata ; although his description, in other respects, is 
applicable to other species now before us. Our Tellina lati- 
rostra is not common, although we once received a consider- 
able number from Amboyna. [Its surface is very smooth, 
but the delicate striz, which can scarcely be seen by the 
naked eye, become perfectly clear under a common lens. 
The Manchester Nat. Hist. Society is in possession of a 
lovely series, exhibiting the following variations of colour : 
1, pure white; 2, rose-coloured round the umbones, paler 
beyond ; 3, entirely rose colour; 4, blush white, with a 
rosy shade on each side the umbones; 5, pale orange ; 
6, buff yellow, resembling 7. depressa. In all these the 
points of the umbones are invariably white. 
Tellina, Pl. 1. 
