CYPRAIDA. 197 
ments; eyes on the middle of the tentacles or near their base ; 
branchial plume single. Lingual ribbon long ; rachis 1-toothed ; 
uncini 3 (xi, 30). 
Cypra@a, Linn. 
Cowry. Etym.—Cypris, a name of Venus. 
Syn.—Porcellana, Rumph. Naria, Gray. Cypreorbis and 
Sulcocyprea, Conr. Peribolus, Adans. 
Distr.—200 sp. Tropical and subtropical, on reefs and under 
rocks at low-water. Fossil, 100 sp. Cretaceous—; Europe, 
India, United States. (. argus, Linn. (Ixi, 96). C.exanthema, 
Linn., young (Ixi, 97). 
Shell ventricose, convolute, covered with shining enamel ; 
spire concealed ; aperture long and narrow, with a short canal 
at each end; inner lip crenulated; outer lip inflected and 
crenulated. 
The young shell has a thin and sharp outer lip, a prominent 
spire, and is covered with a thin epidermis. When full-grown 
the mantle-lobes expand on each side, and deposit a shining 
enamel over the whole shell, by which the Spire is entirely con- 
cealed. There is usually a line of paler color, which indicates 
where the mantle-lobes met. Cyprea annulus is used by the 
Asiatic Islanders to adorn their dress, to weight their fishing- 
nets, and for barter. Specimens of it were found by Dr. Layard 
in the ruins of Nimroud. The money-cowry (C. moneta, 1xi, 1) 
is also a native of the Pacific and Eastern Seas; many tons 
weight of this little shell are annually imported into England, 
and again exported for barter with the native tribes of Western 
Africa ; in the year 1848 sixty tons of the money-cowry were 
imported into Liverpool. Mr. Adams observed the pteropodous 
fry of C. annulus, at Singapore, adhering in masses to the mantle 
of the parent, or swimming in rapid gyrations, or with abrupt 
jerking movements by means of their cephalic fins. 
Bruguiere stated, and Lamarck believed, that as the animal 
increased in size, it was obliged to leave its shell, in order to 
make a new and more capacious one. The notion of Sowerby 
and Reeve that Cypraa can absorb the outer lip and form 
another is not less fanciful. Such hypotheses were founded on 
the circumstance that full-grown shells are often smaller than 
half-grown specimens ; but the difference of size in individuals 
of the present family is paralleled in many others. 
In their habits the cowries are shy and crawl slowly; as they 
glide along among the coral reefs, with the lateral lobes of their 
mantle adorned with showy colors, they present to the eye of 
the naturalist objects of singular interest and beauty. 
LUPONIA, Gray. (Cypreidia, Swains.) Comprises the pyriform 
species, having usually a few strong irregular plaits at the fore- 
