338 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1947 



Another case was recorded in Japan by H. Yasiro (Venus, vol. 9. 

 pp. 165-166, 1939). The translation of this paper appears anon- 

 ymously in the proceedings of the Malacological Society of London, 

 1940, vol. 24, p. 32. 



On 29 June 1935 a man 32 years old left home about 10 a. m. for bathing and 

 shell-collecting. Soon after he was infected by the bite of a Conus geographicus. 

 He immediately felt great pain and scarcely managed to walk home. A doctor 

 attended promptly; the patient's temperature arose to about 36° C. (=113° F.), 

 breathing became difficult and his finger-tips went purple. He was soon uncon- 

 scious and died about 3 to 4 hours after infection. 



Other cases, not all fatal, have been recorded from New Guinea, 

 New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, the Carolines, 

 and the Society Islands. An excellent and much fuller account of the 

 various cases appeared in a recent article by W. J. Clench, curator 

 of the department of mollusks at Harvard College (Occasional Papers 

 on Mollusks, Harvard University, vol. 1, No. 7, pp. 49-80). 



The cone shells apparently use their venomous armature primarily 

 for the purpose of subduing their prey. Fish, crab, and mollusk 

 remains have been found in the crop and stomach. Secondarily, the 

 cone shells use their sting as a means of defense against such enemies as 

 the octopus. Recently in Queensland, Australia, the effectiveness of the 

 cone shell's defense was demonstrated during the course of a shell- 

 collecting trip on the reef. An 18-inch octopus had been captured and 

 put alive in an enamel pail of sea water. Later, a venomous cone shell 

 was found and dropped in with the octopus. In a few minutes the latter 

 began to attack the cone shell with its customary procedure by plac- 

 ing: one of its tentacles across the mouth of the shell. Under normal 

 circumstances it takes an octopus a few minutes to dig and suck a snail 

 animal from it shell, but in this case it suddenly withdrew its hold, wav- 

 ing its tentacles about in violent agitation. Immediately after the 

 retreat of the octopus, the tiny, needlelike radula of the cone shell 

 could be seen slowly withdrawing into the snail's proboscis. A few 

 minutes later the octopus shed one of its tentacles. Although the crea- 

 ture was soon transferred to a well-aerated tank of fresh sea water, 

 it was found dead the following morning. The venomous cone shell, 

 on the other hand, remained healthy and active for many more days. 



The species of cone shells reported in the literature as having been 

 responsible for deadly stings are the tulip cone {Conus ttdipa), the 

 textile cone (Conus textile) , the geography cone (Conus geographus) ^ 

 the marble cone (Conus maimioreus), and the courtly cone (Conus 

 aulicu^) . Oddly enough, the nature of the cone-shell poison has never 

 been investigated by a chemist. The marlinspike shells of the genus 

 Terehra, a cousin of the cone shells, are also armed with harpoonlike 

 teeth and a small poison gland, but to date no records of their inflicting 

 a sting in man have appeared in the literature. 



