COWRIES. 173 
lens, as I have been this moment doing, a Cowry 
crawling up the side of a phial filled with sea- 
water. By placing the vessel between your eye 
and the light, and fixing your attention on the 
front of the proboscis, you will presently perceive 
the minute particles of floatmg matter (always 
held in suspension even in clear water) drawn in 
various directions towards the tube, with a motion 
which increases in velocity as they approach, and 
at length rapidly sucked in and disappearing one 
after another within. It is an interesting sight to 
see, and one that cannot be looked on without 
delight and admiration at this beautiful contrivance 
of divine wisdom, for the incessant breathing of 
the respiratory organs, in water charged with vivi- 
fying oxygen. 
Let us now look at the vivid hues of all these 
organs. The foot, which expands to so great a 
length and breadth behind the shell, is of a buff, 
or pale orange-ground colour, delicately striated 
with longitudinal undulating veins of yellowish 
white. The mantle which embraces the shell is of 
a pellucid olive, thickly mottled and spotted with 
black, and studded with glands protruding through 
its substance of light yellow; and it is edged with 
a narrow border of red. The proboscis is ver- 
milion-red, varying in brilliancy in different indi- 
viduals. ‘The tentacula are of a paler tint, of the 
same colour, speckled with yellow. 
Such, then, is the beauty of the animal which 
inhabits this familiar and plain little shell; a 
beauty, of which those who know it only in cabi- 
nets can hardly form an idea; while as one gazes 
on it placidly gliding along, one cannot avoid an 
emotion of surprise that such an amplitude of 
