P. H. GOSSE, _del._ LEIGHTON, BROS.
LIGIA. TORBAY BONNET. TUSK-SHELL.
]
When the Tusk-shell is found alive, we rarely can see more of the
soft parts than a sort of white cushion occupying the mouth of the
shell, and occasionally protruding or receding, with a little conical
point projecting from the centre of it. You might keep it for weeks,
as I have done, and see no more, by the most assiduous watching, than
this; but at some fortunate moment you might perchance see the whole
foot, of which this little cone is the extremity, thrust far out of
the cushion-like collar, when you would discern a wide lobed membrane,
fringing the base of the foot, trumpet-like in shape, or resembling the
blossom of a convolvulus, with the thick and pointed foot projecting
from its centre like a pistil.
These sluggish white mollusks ordinarily live on the muddy
sea-floor, or burrow in it, where they devour minuter animals, such
as _Foraminifera_, and the spawn and larval forms of their fellow
_Mollusca_. They are rarely taken alive at a less depth than ten
fathoms.