The Pelicans Foot

THE PELICAN'S FOOT Genus APORRHAIS, Dillw.

Shell spiral with whorls angled and set with knobs; outer lip much expanded, ending in two to three flattened fingers, as 122 The Conch Shells long as the shell proper; posterior and anterior canal prominent. Four species in the North Atlantic.

The Pelican's Foot (A. ,es-pelicani, Lam.) is a strange looking customer. The four webbed toes of a pelican's foot are certainly suggested by the modifications of this shell's outer lip. The toes and thin webs extend backward, covering a consider able portion of the body whorl of the shell.

This mollusk is slow and awkward in movement, throwing out its foot and twisting its neck in its efforts to get along. Its forked shell lip is formed late in life, after which it merely becomes thicker. By counting the layers, it is believed, one may determine the age of the individual. The flesh is eaten by the poorer classes

in Venice. In Edinburgh it is called the "blobber-lipt whilk." This peculiar shell is likely to occur in any collection. It is yellowish brown. Length, about 2 inches.

Habitat.— European seas.

A. occidentalis,

Beck, the western species, is known so far by its shell alone. Fish pick up the living mollusks in deep water off the Newfoundland Banks, and the shells are taken from their stomachs afterward. Imperfect specimens are washed ashore on Newfoundland beaches. The spire is closely ribbed both ways, and the outer lip expands into a wide, three-cornered, concave wing. Knowledge of the animal may eventually take this shell out of the genus to which it is now tentatively assigned.