"HE NAUTILUS. 



VOL. X. APRIL, 1897. No. 12 



THE IANTHINAS. 



BY CHARLES T. SIMPSON. 



The lanthinas, or violet snails, live gregarious in the open seas of 

 the tropics, and float by means of a raft composed of vesicles filled 

 with air, which cannot be withdrawn into the shell. Sometimes 

 they are carried by winds and currents into the seas of temperate 

 regions, and their shells have been found along the shores of our 

 own country as far north as New England. I had collected for 

 many years and in many countries, but had never found, perhaps, 

 more than a dozen dead, broken shells. In January, J883, 1 was on 

 a large schooner bound for Spanish Honduras, and we stopped at 

 Key West, where I spent one of the most delightful weeks of my life 

 gathering Cylindrellas, Chondropomas, Cerions, He I id-net orbiculata, 

 and the beautiful Orthalicus, Liguiis, and Bulimulus mnliilineatus 

 in the thick, thorny, tropical scrub, or Strombs and bright Tellinas 

 and blending Neritas and a hundred other interesting forms along 

 the south shore. We were to sail about noon on Sunday, but I 

 could not resist the temptation to take one last look at the places 

 where I had spent so many happy hours, so after breakfast I wan- 

 dered through the city and out to the beach. 



Before I reached it I noticed that as far as the eye could see, it 

 was a mass of the most intense, glowing violet color, and on coming 

 up to it was astonished to find that this color came from untold mil- 

 lions of lanthina, which had been washed up in the night, for when 

 I had left the beach the evening before at dusk, not one was to be 

 seen. To say that they lined the shore gives no idea of the real 

 truth. Everywhere, from below low water to highest tide mark 

 they were piled up, in most places, over shoe-top deep, and in the 

 hollows of rocks one could have waded in among them up to his 

 knees shell, animal and float all of a vivid purple, the richness of 



