74 HALIOTID.E. 



smooth rock he moves along at no snail's pace, but strides on like 

 an elephant. Not quite so fast, to be sure, but the motion of his 

 body, slightly swaying from side to side, and the tremendous mus- 

 cular force which he evidently exerts cause one to involuntarily 

 compare his gait to that of the great proboscidian." 



" Very fine green pearls, almost rivaling the product of the 

 pearl-oyster are sometimes taken from its mantle. Its flesh is good 

 for food, though perhaps few people except Chinese and Indians ever 

 indulge in that luxury. I can speak from experience however, and 

 am ready to affirm that ' abalone soup,' well made, is fit for the table 

 of the most fastidious." {Keep, l. c.) 



Very young shells have no perforations, just as the young 

 Scissurella has no slit. 



In California these shells are known as " Abalones," a local name 

 of uncertain etymology. They are called " ormers " in England, 

 where quantities of H. tuberculoid are manufactured into buttons. 

 French names are "Ormier" and " Silieux " (six yeux, six eyes). 

 The Japanese call them " awabi." 



The animal (pi. 1, fig. 17) has a strong fleshy foot as long as the 

 shell (or in Teinotis a little longer), its upper surface granose. Head 

 with a short thick proboscis ending distally in a rounded disc, in its 

 center is the mouth, a longitudinally oval orifice ;. there is a frontal 

 vail, somewhat lobed but not fringed, connecting the short eye- 

 peduncles, which lie just above and outside of the subulate tentacles. 

 A fleshy and prominent epipodial ridge surrounds the foot, its 

 border tuberculate and fringed with short cirri. In front this 

 epipodial ridge terminates just under the tentacles ; behind it is 

 interrupted by an oval rugose tract of the integument (the oper- 

 culigerous lobe) indicating the position of the absent operculum. 

 The mantle is slit at the position of the row of holes, the slit extend- 

 ing as far back as the last open hole, which is occupied by the pro- 

 longed free anus. The gills are long, one on each side of the slit, 

 each composed of two series of lamella? united by a central rachis. 



Hdliotis has been monographed by Reeve, Conchologia Iconica, 

 vol. iii, 1846. This work contains descriptions of many new species. 

 The descriptions are extremely poor. Reeve did not figure or des- 

 cribe the characters of the interior. His figures of the outside are 

 good. 



G. B. Sowerby Jr. in the Thesaurus Conchyliorum, vol. v, 1882? 

 Contains more species than Reeve's work, being later. The figures 

 are not so o-nod. 



