The textile cone, 

 Conus textile, which 

 lives in the Philippine 

 Islands. (Tryon.) 



principally in tropical seas, where they love to conceal themselves in 

 holes in the rocks, or among the branches of corals. The animal is 

 predaceous, boring into the shells of other mollusks and extracting 

 the juices from their bodies. The teeth of Conus are hollow and very 

 sharp, and have a barb on the end. A poison gland is said to be 



present, and bites from the animal are very painful, 

 although not dangerous ; yet the large Conus marmo- 

 reus is able to inflict a severe wound. The cone is 

 quite pugnacious, and when picked up will immedi- 

 ately bite the hand. It is a veritable reptile of the 

 ocean. 



" Mr. Arthur Adams records the case of a gentle- 

 man who was collecting on the shores of the Moluccas. 

 He had taken a large cone shell from the water, and 

 was much surprised to have it suddenly thrust out 

 its proboscis and bite his hand. The bite left a small, 

 deep, triangular mark, which was followed by a watery 

 vesicle. The gentleman described the sensation to be 

 like that caused by burning phosphorus under the 

 skin. The moral of this story is, ' Be careful in pick- 

 ing up individuals of the cone family.' A fine chestnut 

 colored cone lives on the coast of California; and several species, 

 notably Conus proteus, with reddish brown spots on a whitish ground, 

 may be collected in Florida. The great majority of the 

 species are found in the Pacific and Indian oceans. 



" A very large family of shells nearly related to the 

 Conus is the Pleurotomidce. The name is from the 

 Greek, and means side notch, and is given to these 

 shells because of the peculiar notch or sinus in the upper 

 part of the outer lip. There are over five hundred species 

 in this family, all having shells which are fusiform and 

 turriculated, and with long spires and canals. They 

 live in all parts of the world, and may be found from 

 low water to a depth of over a thousand fathoms. Some 

 of the species are very large, being over four inches in 

 length, while others are less than one-fourth of an inch 

 in length. All are handsomely sculptured with spiral 

 lines and pustules. 



"The Columbellas, or dove shells, are among the 

 most common mollusks found on the shores of tropical and subtropical 

 lands. Their shells are never large, scarcely exceeding three-fourths 



118 



Pleurotoma 

 babylonia. (Tryon.) 



