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the Gloucester Museum, and was lent me for examination through 
the kindness of J. W. Wilton, Esq., of Gloucester. 
This species is found at Sicily, and on the south coasts of Spain 
and Portugal; but not, so far as we are aware, at Mogador or the 
Canaries. 
On the coast of Sicily, according to M. Philippi, it is rare, and 
only found between La Trezza and Aci Castello. M. H. Crosse, 
who purposely visited this locality, found a rocky beach in which it 
could not possibly live, and the only spot where the fishermen were 
acquainted with it was the village of Giardini, near the sandy bay of 
Taormina ; even there only odd valves were procured, and he says it 
would be exceedingly difficult to obtain the animal on account of the 
absence of tides*. 
Capt. Guise has favoured me with the following note :— 
“The Panopea was collected, together with many of the rarest 
forms of Mediterranean Mollusca, by the Rev. L. Larking, on the 
coast of Sicily ; the animal, when alive in a vessel of sea-water, was 
a most lively mollusk—slashing its siphons about, and discharging 
the water with the force of a piston.” 
There appears to be no description of the animal published. 
Philippi had not seen it, nor Valenciennes, at the time he wrote the 
monograph of the genus for Chenu’s ‘ Conchological Illustrations.’ 
Being the type of the genus Panopea, I was the more desirous of 
examining it, especially as British naturalists have taken their notion 
of Panopea from the British shell called “ Panopea Norvegica”— 
which it now appears does not belong to the genus, or even to the 
same family, but must be referred to Saxicava amongst the Gastro- 
chenide. 
In P. Aldrovandi all the visible portion of the mantle and the 
long united siphons are clothed with thick, brown epidermis, striped 
with black, and very much wrinkled by the contraction of the animal 
in alcohol : it was impossible, without dissection, to see whether the 
orifices of the siphons were fringed as in Mya. The anterior gape of 
the shell exhibits an oval space, perforated in the centre by a small 
pedal orifice, scarcely large enough to admit the little finger. 
By lifting up one valve and removing the portion of the mantle 
within the pallial line, the internal organs were seen and sketched. 
The body is large and oval, suspended by four muscles whose 
attachments are close to those of the adductors; it is truncated in 
front, where it supports a small finger-like muscular foot ; behind it 
is produced into a blunt point. 
The oral palpi are triangular and pointed, but were probably larger 
and broader during life; they are deeply plaited inside, with a plain 
posterior border. . 
The gills are two on each side; the inner gills extend from the 
base of the respiratory siphon to the palpi, between which they are 
received ; they are deeply plaited, the plaits being in pairs, and the 
lower edge of the gill is grooved. The inner dorsal margins are not 
* Journ. Conch. vol. ii. 1851. 
