836 



L WER IN VEll 1 EBR A TES. 



Sub-Order III. — Toxiglossa. 



These animals are all predaceous and carnivorous, for which they are well adapted. 

 They have a strong proboscis, whicli can be extended some distance f I'om the shell. 

 The lingual ribbon is armed with two rows of teeth, the middle or rhachidian series 

 being absent. The teeth are long and hollow, and it would ajipear that the animals 

 have the power to poison their prey. 



The largest family, and the one best known to collectors, is the Coxidjs, which 

 receives its name from the conical shape of the shell. The members are almost all 

 tropical or sub-tropical, the number of species and the brightness of the coloi'S increas- 

 ing as we approach the equatorial regions. Notwithstanding their carnivorous propen- 

 sities they are apparently timorous, jireferring to live in holes in the rocks and coral 

 reefs, and retiring within the shell at the approach of danger. They crawl in a slow, 

 sluggisli manner, with their tentacles stretched straight out before them. The only 

 genus is Conus, of which about three hundred species are known, most of them being 

 inhabitants of the eastern seas, only about fifty being found in the trojiical ■\\aters of 

 America. The general appearance of the animal may be seen from our figure of one 



of an oriental species, Conus 

 textilis. The eyes are near 

 1 he base of the tentacles, the 

 loot is narrow and long, and 

 furnished in the middle with 

 a large opening, the object 

 of which is frequently as- 

 serted to be the admission 

 of water to the circulatory 

 system. This connection of 

 the blood vessels witli the ex- 

 ternal world has been lately 

 I _ ~ denied in any and all mol- 



luscs, and apparently with 

 reason. Usually a small operculum is ]iresent, but not infrequently it is absent. The 

 sliell is thick, cone-shaped, the spire short, a]ierture narrow, the outer 

 lij) sharp and neither toothed. 



We have just referred to the fact that some, if not all, of tlie 

 Toxiglossa are poisonous, and the reader will doubtless pardon the 

 following quotation from the pages of Mr. Arthur Adams. S]ieaking 

 of Convs aidicus he says, — "Its bite produces a venoraed wound 

 accompanied by acute pain, and making a small, deep, triangular 

 mark, which is succeeded by a watery vescicle. At the little island 

 of Meyo, one of the Moluccas, near Ternate, Sir Edwfird Belclier was 

 bitten by one of these cones, which suddenly exserted its proboscis as 

 he took it out of the water with his hand, and he compares the sensa- 

 tion he experienced to that produced by burning phosphorus under 

 the skin." In the South Sea Islands, Conus textilis and C. marmoreus are also con- 

 sidered as jioisonous, though cases where their bite is fatal are rare and not well 

 authenticated. It is supposed that the teeth break off and are left in the wound. 



Fig. 4:^J. — Conus 



