144 EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSKS. 



Shell oblong, opaque ; valves inequilateral, covered with 

 concentric striae, which become coarser and more wavy 

 towards the extremities, and are crossed by longitudinal 

 striae; ligament external, long, horn-colour. Three teeth 

 in each valve, erect, very narrow. 



Though so common a species, the Tapes is not so 

 generally eaten in England as abroad, though both this 

 and Tapes decussata are eaten in Devonshire, Hamp- 

 shire, and Sussex. They both inhabit muddy sand or 

 gravel, and occasionally we find specimens of the former 

 in holes which have been made by the Pholas, and de- 

 serted ; and I have taken them out of holes in the 

 rocks both at Tenby and Eastbourne, but rarely with- 

 out some depression or distortion of the valves. But 

 the T. decussata is more local than the T. pullastra. I 

 had never found it in profusion till the spring of 1862, 

 when, on visiting the sands near the mouth of the Exe, 

 I noticed that at low-water mark the ground was 

 covered with specimens of it, and also with Scrobicularia 

 piperita, which is called by the Exmouth fishermen the 

 " mud-hen ;" but this latter is not used for food, as it 

 has a hot biting taste.* It is a larger and more rugged 

 shell than Tapes pullastra, though much resembling it, 

 but it is not so convex, and differs from it in colour, 

 being of a dirty white, with the bands, rays, or mark- 

 ings of a drab colour, sometimes of a purplish tinge ; 

 while Tapes pullastra is of a more yellowish-white, with 

 zigzag markings of a rufous-brown, sometimes extend- 

 ing all over the shell, and at others only towards the ex- 

 tremities. 



In the Northern Isles the pullet, or cullyock, is only 

 used for bait. 



* Jeffreys' Brit. Conchology, vol. ii. p. 446. 



