COWRIES. 167 
after the manner of the spots on the cephalopodous 
mollusca, or, to use a more familiar instance, some- 
what in the same way that the hues of a turkey- 
cock’s wattle vary.* 
Mr. Arthur Adams, however, remarks on this 
statement: ‘“ Although I have examined hundreds 
of Cyprea tigris in a living state, I never saw 
those changes of colour in the mantle of the animal 
described by Mr. Stutchbury.” T 
The form of a cowry-shell is so peculiar, that no 
one, on first taking it into 
the hand, would suspect that 
it is modelled on the same 
plan as the cones and olives 
with which it is frequently 
associated. Yet the structure 
is essentially the same, and 
in the youth of the shell the 
resemblance is manifest, a 
young cowry being so like 
an olive as to present no 
peculiarity worth notice. In 
the course of growth, however, important changes in 
the external shape occur, chiefly by the development 
of the outer lip, and the deposition of the surface- 
enamel. Mr. Gray defines three stages in the growth 
of Cyprea exanthema. In the first the shell is 
generally smooth, of a pale greyish colour, or with 
three transverse bands, and the upper part of the 
inner lip is smooth and convex, the lower part flat 
or concave ; the owter lip is thin. The accompany- 
ing figures represent this stage. 
In the next stage the shell begins to assume 
* Zool. Journ. iv. 163. 
T Zoology of Samarang, part iii. p. 24. 
YOUNG COWRY. 
