126 POPULAR BRITISH CONCHOLOGY. 



" Marked you her eye of heavenly blue ?" 

 The shell is the flattest and most spreading of spiral uni- 

 valves. It has a very small flattened spire and a very large 

 aperture^ remarkable for the series of holes formed along the 

 ridge, corresponding with the canal of others : only a few of 

 the latest of these are kept open, the preceding ones having 

 been successively filled up from within by the fresh deposits 

 of pearly matter. The outside is handsomely painted with 

 zigzag markings of green, brown, red, and white, and the 

 inside so brilliantly iridescent, that the shell is used in large 

 quantities in the manufacture Q\i pa/pier mciche. 



So little is known of the character of molluscs, that we 

 have sometimes actually been asked, how we painted the 

 shells ! In general, it is easy enough to see at a glance that 

 Nature has, in every case, given the last finishing touch to 

 her own productions ; but in paintings of many of the 

 Haliotides there is so much the appearance of the colours 

 being "laid on,'' that such a question might naturally be 

 asked by persons who had never seen a shell before. 



Even this solitary species of Haliotis is admitted among 

 the British Fauna without any strict right to the honour. 

 Its only claim arises from its residence among the islands of 

 the British Channel, where it is plentiful. It is there called 



