14i 
EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSKS. 
Shell oblong, opaque ; valves inequilateral, covered with 
concentric strise, 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 cully ock, is only 
used for bait. 
* Jeffreys’ Bi’it. Conchology, toI. ii. p. 446. 
