366 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History (Vol. LIIL 
Captain Tuckey,! H. de Cort, and others have noted the extensive 
use of this species for food by the natives and this is fully corroborated 
by Mr. Lang’s observations. Professor Gruvel also states that the shells 
are burned for lime, which they furnish of excellent quality, in demand 
for whitewash and mortar. H. de Cort has given many interesting 
details as to the location of these clams in life; he mentions, moreover, 
that as a comestible they are insipid and unsubstantial. 
Egeria tenuicula (Philippi) 
Galatea tenuicula Puiuipri, 1849, Zeitschr. f. Malakoz., V, (1848) p. 191 (type 
locality unknown); 1851, ‘Abbild. Beschr. Conchyl.,’ III, p. 124 (?Bernarpt, 1860, 
‘Monogr. Galatea,’ p. 41, Pl. 11, fig. 2 and Pl. vii, fig. 5). 
Egeria tenuicula langi, new subspecies 
Plate X XIX, Figures 1-3 
Galatea tenuicula Philippi. C. R. Barrcmr, 1913, Ann. Soc. Zool. Malacol. 
Belgique, XLVIT, (1912), p. 114. — 
“Terra de Bambu”’ (that is brackish water region) of the Congo estuary (P. 
Hesse Coll.). 
Malela, with EL. congica (Lang and Chapin Coll.). 
The shell is triangular-elliptical (the height about 70 per cent of the length), 
compressed (the diameter about 42 per cent of the length), thin for this genus. 
Covered with a smooth epidermis of various nuances between naples yellow, cinnamon, 
and isabella color (in some examples having dusky green radial spots in the region of 
the beaks). The valves have an ill-defined, rounded posterior ridge and small sub- 
median beaks projecting but little; the anterior end is rounded, the upper margin 
somewhat straightened; posterior end indistinctly truncate obliquely, upper margin 
somewhat convex; basal margin is evenly convex. The right valve has a strong 
submedian cardinal tooth which is very slightly emarginate, and a thin posterior; 
very small but distinct laterals are present. In the left valve there are two diverging 
cardinals with only the slightest trace of an intermediate tooth. Nymphs small. 
The interior is white, with violet stains on the lateral hinge-margins and in the pallial 
sinus. In other examples the whole interior may be either white, violaceous, or rarely 
light congo pink. 
Lenght, 51.0 mm. ; height, 36.4 mm.; diameter, 21.5 mm. Type; Pl. XXIX, Figs. 1-1c. 
age 8-5 0) oxo.) - LAD Paratype. 
i 38.0 4 26.5 ‘ die 
This is a form very close to #. tenuicula (Philippi), being similar in 
general form and in the teeth; but it differs by the less prominent, not at 
all swollen beaks. Philippi emphasizes the ‘“apicibus prominentibus, 
tumidis” of tenuzcula. It is also a little more compressed than tenuicula, 
the diameter 42-46 per cent of the length. 
1Tuckey’s remarks have been reproduced in our introduction, p, 85. 
