97 
icftpressed concentric lines, which on the anterior margin are alter- 
nately obsolete; interstitial spaces flat; within tinged with yellow, 
a callous line, which is sometimes obsolete, passes from behind 
the hinge to the inner margin of the posterior cicatrix; anterior 
hinge tooth emarginate; posterior lamellar tooth very near the 
cardinal teeth, so as to appear like a primary tooth, that of the 
right valve wanting; anterior lamellar tooth at the extremity of 
the ligament ; anterior hinge slope declining in a somewhat con- 
cave line to an obliquely truncated tip. 
Length one inch and one-fourth. Width two inches and one- 
fifth. Thickness two-fifths of an inch. Inhabits the coast of 
Gleorgia and East Florida. Cabinet of the Academy and Phila- 
delphia Museum. 
Rather a common shell, beautifully and very regularly striated. 
When cast upon the beach, one of the valves is very commonly 
perforated near the hinge ; this operation, it would seem, is most 
frequently performed upon the left valve, as, of ten specimens thus 
mutilated, I have but two with the perforation on the right valve. 
It varies in being destitute of the yellow color within. It is 
probably allied to T. punicea, but I have never found it so far 
north as the coast of New Jersey. It is much more elongated than 
the latter, the strise are far more distinct, and it is entirely and 
always destitute of the rose-colored bands, and lines, such as are 
represented in Born’s figure of that shell. It cannot be the T. 
migulosa of Gmel., as that species is described to be suborbicular, 
amd to have the lateral teeth remote, whereas the alternata has 
but one of the lateral teeth remote. 
Tellina polita. — Shell transversely subtriangular, minutely 
wrinkled concentrically, white, immaculate ; anterior margin rather 
shorter than the posterior one, the hinge slope declining, in a very 
slightly arquated line, to a subacute termination ; basal margin 
nearly rectilinear from behind the middle to the anterior termina- 
tion ; a lateral tooth behind the primary teeth. 
Length two-fifths of an inch. Breadth thirteen-twentieths of an 
inch. Inhabits the southern coast. Cabinet of the Academy and 
Philadelphia Museum. Not unfrequently on the beach of South 
Carolina and East Florida. 
