Page:Natural History, Mollusca.djvu/225

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CAP-SHELLS.
213

The interior of the shell is delicately smooth, and of the same roseate hue as the exterior.

TORBAY BONNET.

The animal is usually pale yellow, with a pink mantle bordered with a fine orange-coloured fringe. The head, which is large and swollen, is tinged with brown. Though generally distributed, the Fools-cap must be considered a rare shell. Torbay, as one of its familiar names indicates, is the locality in which it occurs in greatest abundance. I have had several specimens brought to me from Weymouth Bay, and the West Bay of Portland. Messrs. Forbes and Hanley state that it "chiefly inhabits rocky ground, and oyster and scallop banks, adhering to shells living in various depths of water, from fifteen to as deep as eighty fathoms, and extending its range to considerable distances from land. It is finest in from fifteen to twenty-five fathoms, and usually small in very deep water."[1]

It has been proved, says M. Deshayes,[2] by observation, that the animals of this genus are

  1. Br. Moll. ii. 461.
  2. Annales du Muséum.