58 Beautiful Shells. 
the water, inhabited by a living mollusk, it looks as 
though made of pearl, and studded with rubies; 
the animal, too, is richly coloured, being yellow 
with black stripes. See Plate IV., Fig. 3. 
Not so common as the last is another British 
mollusk of this genus, called the Granulated 
Trochus (7. granulatus). It is the larger, and, as 
many think, the more elegant shell of the twe, 
being in colour a faint flesh tint or yellowish white, 
shaded here and there with purple; the spiral lines 
which encircle it are composed of small round knobs 
which stand out hke beads. 
There is a singular shell of this genus, called 
the Carrier Trochus (Z. phorus); it is generally 
found loaded with foreign objects, such as shells, 
small stones, bits of coral, etc., which it attaches 
to itself, and so goes about like a collector of 
natural curiosities, with his cabinet on his back. 
The Imperial Trochus (7. imperialis), Fig. 4, 
whose scientific name explains itself, is one of the 
handsomest shells of the genus ; it is very rare, and 
has hitherto been found only at New Zealand. Let 
us give our young readers a specimen of the way in 
which scientific writers describe shells; thus, this 
foreign Trochus, they tell us, is  orbicularly 
conical, the apex obtuse, the whorls turgidly 
