480 TERMINOLOGY OF 



when tliey cross the whorls, they are said to be transveo'se or 

 transversely rowed. 



The colours of the external surface, both in kind and 

 pattern, vary infinitely ;* and it is this variety and beauty of 

 colouring-, joined with equal variety in sculpture and ele- 

 gance of form, that have drawn towards shells so much admi- 

 ration in all times. 



" And in the symmetry of their parts is found 

 A power, like tliat of harmony in sound."t 



Pliny becomes eloquent in their praise, and I give you his 

 eulogium in the words of Dr. Philemon Holland : — " As for 

 the Pourcelanes or Murices, they have a stronger skaled shell ; 

 as also all the kind of Winkles great and small. Wherin a 

 man may see the wonderfull varietie of Nature in this play 

 and pastime of hers, giuing them so many and sundry colours, 

 with such diuersitie of formes and figaires ; for of them yee 

 shall haue flat and plain, hollow, long, horned like the moon 

 croissant, full round, halfe round, and cut as it were just 

 through the niids, bow-backt, and rising vp, smooth, rough, 

 toothed and indented like a saw, ridged and chamfered be- 

 tween, wrinkling and winding vpward to the top like Cal- 

 tropes, bearing out sharpe points in the edges, without — foott 

 broad and spread at large, within rolled in pleits. More- 

 ouer, there be other distinct shapes besides all these : some 

 be striped and raied with long streaks, others crested and 

 biasing with a bush of long haire : some againe crisped and 



* Blue is rare, and green is not very common^ It was once believed that 

 no shell exhibited a blue colour, and it is in reference to this belief, that 

 Linnseus, after his description of Patella pellucida, adds, " Ex hac patet 

 colorem cseruleum etiam dari in Cochleis." Sifst. 1260. — The colours are 

 often "formally distribute<l in spots, and squares, and lines;" but often also 

 they are combined and blended gently one with another, or contrasted so as 

 to produce brilliant and exact patterns. Mr. Duncan, after a rapid survey of 

 colour, as exhibited in the Animal Kingdom, adds, " But in no department 

 of nature is such rcaularity of delineation more strikingly and beautifully 

 diversified, than in the shells of those multivalvcs, bivalves, and uni\alves, 

 the Pholades, Tellina^, Veneres, Nautili, Coni, Volutpe, Trochi, Helices, &c. 

 which eirrich the cabinets of the Concliologists." — Anal. Organ. Beings, 55. 



t " Colours are universally agreeable to mankind; and the most incurious 

 and ignorant are attracted by, and delighted with, showy exhibitions of tliem. 

 Now, all this pleasure is the gratuitous gift of the Creator, and places his 

 benevolence in the strongest possible point of view. There was no reason 

 why man should have distinguished colours at all, much less have been 

 delighted with them ; but what is the fact ? not only are we gifted with 

 organs exquisitely sensible to the beauty of colours ; but, as if solely to 

 gratify this feeling, the whole of Nature, from the highest to the lowest of 

 lier productions, forms one gorgeously coloured picture, in which every pos- 

 sible tint is contrasted or associated in every possible manner." — Prout's 

 B?-ideew. Treatise, 235. 



