34 



opening to tlie right hand is highly valued, and always sells 

 for its weight in gold. Further, Baldseus, writing towards 

 the end of the seventeenth century, narrates the legend that 

 " Garroude flew in all haste to Brahma and brought to 

 Kistna the chianko or kinkhorn twisted to the right." 



The curious eg^ capsules of the chank, of which many 

 specimens were brought up for me by the Tuticorin divers, 

 have been well described by my predecessor, Dr. G. Bidie, 

 CLE., who says of them^ : — 



" The spawn of the Turbinella consists of a series of sacs or 

 oviferous receptacles (pi. iii, fig. 1), the transverse markings in 

 the figure indicating the dimensions of each capsule. In the 

 fresh state the membranous walls of the sacs are pliable, 

 although tough and horny ; and it will be observed that, dm-ing 

 the drying process, the spawn has, from the irregular shrinking 

 of the two sides, become curved and twisted so as to have some- 

 what the appearance of a horn In fig. 2 a side view 



is given of a separated capsule, and fig. 3 gives magnified 

 sketches of the young shells. The larger oviferous sacs of the 

 Turbinella spawn contain from 8 to 10 young shells each, but the 

 smaller ones, towards the end of the specimen, are barren. In 

 fig. 1 there are 30 fertile sacs, and, say that each of these on 

 an average contains 6 germs, we thus have altogether 180 

 young shells in the whole of the ceUs." 



The largest number of young shells which I found in a 

 single specimen was 235, of which the average diameter was 

 •62 inch. 



Madras Journal of Literature and Science, vol. XXIV, 1879, pp. 232-234. 



