2 l 8 
THE ESSEX NATURALIST. 
A similar shell is described by M. M. Bucquoy, Dautzenberg 
and Dollfus (MollMar. du Roiissilldn, v. ii., p. 23, pi. V., fig. 7, 8, 
9), asO. stentina var. pepratxil, and an odd valve from Tripolitana 
is described by Monterosato. The British shell is rather variable, 
and may be the same, but I have no means of comparing the 
two. 
OSTREA ROSTRALIS (in Reeve). 
Reeve (op. cit., pi. x., fig. 20), describes this shell as oblong, 
rugged, upper valve lamellate, the other excavated and longi¬ 
tudinally grooved, beak prominent, Hab. Mediterranean. The 
British Museum specimens and my own are from Portugal (Tagus 
region). 
This shell is elongated and irregular, undulated, striped 
and variegated brown and purple on a whitish ground. Beak 
acuminate, narrow and produced, under valve overlapping the 
upper one. The apex is normal and not undercut as in 0 . angnlata ; 
interior usually a chalky white, exterior of lower valve 
smooth, and ivory white in colour. The York Museum has a 
very fine upper valve of this type (plate xviii., fig. 28), obtained 
by myself from the Lusitanian deposit at Selsey in Sussex, but as 
the figure shows, it is rather more ovate than the usual run of 
Portuguese examples,and may represent another or allied species. 
Sir Gardner Wilkinson, in a note on Ostrea virginica (.Zoologist , 
1865, vol xxiii, p. 9558,), says he found that shell at Tenby, where 
he was residing, naming it specifically the Ostrea virginica of 
Spain, he having collected it at Cadiz. His largest Tenby speci¬ 
men was 5! inches long, 3J inches at its widest part, and if 
inches deep. He remarks further that the beak, and with it 
the hinge, in a full grown Spanish shell frequently become 
depressed or bent downwards. This feature does not appear 
in the Selsey shell. It can hardly be termed a specific character 
as the same aberration of the apex appears in others of the long 
oyster type (p. 191). 
I have obtained from the Thatcher Rock and Hope’s Nose, 
Torbay, a number of specimens that appear to correspond with 
Wilkinson’s shell; the one figured (pi. xviii., fig. 27) from the 
the Thatcher is thick, flat, with a length of 105 mm. and 
breadth of 65 mm. 
