D i 
KELLIA, Turton. 
Gen. Char. An equivalved, more or less trans- 
verse, slender bivalve; valves close at the sides; 
hinge with sometimes two central teeth and 
one lateral tooth in the left valve, sometimes 
only one central and no lateral tooth ; ligament 
internal, linear, attached to a pit along and 
within the posterior edge of the hinge-plate ; 
muscular impressions two, nearly orbicular ; 
impression of the mantle obscure, entire? 
Dr. Turton established this genus and gave the charac- 
ters from a small recent British shell, discovered by Mon- 
tague, who called it My a suborbicularis. The genus is 
named in commemoration of Mr. J. M. O’Kelly of Dub- 
lin. Dr. Turton’s definition is, — 
“ Shell somewhat globular, equivalved, closed ; hinge 
with two approximate teeth and a remote lateral tooth in 
one valve, and a concave tooth and a remote lateral one in 
the other; ligament internal.” 
It has been necessary to alter this description that it may 
include several species so nearly related that Mr. S. V. 
Wood has arranged them together, and also to distinguish 
it from Erycina , Lam., which has a sinus in the impression 
of the mantle, and has a pit for the ligament between, not 
behind, the two cardinal teeth ; nevertheless several fossil 
species of Lamarck’s as well as of Deshayes’ Erycina be- 
long probably to Kellia. 
The position of the surface or pit for the attachment of 
the ligament also distinguishes Kellia from Mesodesma of 
Deshayes, which is Erycina of G. B. Sowerby, but not of 
Lamarck. 
