CHAPTER XII: THE TELLEN SHELLS. SUNSET 

 SHELLS. WEDGE SHELLS 



Family TELLiNiDiE 



Shell free, compressed, usually equivalve and closed; tex- 

 ture translucent, porcellanous ; hinge with two cardinal teeth; 

 ligament external, on short end of shell; pallial sinus deep; foot 

 flat, long, extensible; byssus wanting; mantle fringed, wide open 

 in front; gills small, unequal, outer pair sometimes directed toward 

 the hinge line; siphons long, slender, separate. A large family 

 found just below the surface on sandy or muddy shores of all 

 seas; a few in estuaries and rivers. It contains some of the hand- 

 somest of bivalve shells. 



Genus TELLINA, Linn. 



Shell rounded in front, angled and slightly folded posteriorly; 

 hinge nearly central ; valves slightly unequal, siphons twice length 

 of shell; their tips not fringed; gills small, outer ones rudimen- 

 tary, turned backward. Above three hundred species in all seas; 

 centre of distribution, the Indian Ocean. Tropical species abund- 

 ant, brilliantly coloured. One hundred and seventy fossil 

 species. 



The Sunset Shell (7. radiata, Linn.) also called the "sunrise 

 shell," has its polished white valves painted with three broad 

 divergent rays of pink, extending from beak to^margin, in the same 

 way that widening bands of light, glowing with warm colour, 

 stream from the focus of the rising and the setting sun. There is 

 a tinge of yellow about the hinge. In the curio stores on the 

 Florida coasts, and in the West Indies these beautiful shells may 

 be had for a very small price. If they were less abundant we 

 would have to pay higher prices for them. The living mollusks 

 burrow just below the surface, at low water, and anybody can 

 get them by a little digging. The shells require no polishing, and 

 those of our own digging have this advantage over bought speci- 



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