20 Shells as evidence of the Migrations. 
shell. Many of the specimens of this species had a 
portion of the body whorl broken away “as if for the 
purpose of more conveniently extracting the animal.” 
The same species is recorded from the Okadaira Shell 
Mound at Hitachi by J. Jijima and C. Sasaki,” who also 
call attention to the fact of the specimens having almost 
always an irregular opening in their body whorl as if 
made for facilitating the extraction of the animal. 
Why the shells of this particular species should be 
broken and not the others is remarkable. The idea that 
such a procedure was solely to facilitate the extraction of 
the animal for food purposes does not appear to be con- 
clusive. A far greater significance is attached to such an 
occurrence when one considers that Kafana besoar belongs 
to the purple-bearing family, A7usrczd@, and is closely 
allied to Purpura. It is not improbable, therefore, that 
the object in breaking the shells was to obtain purple for 
dyeing purposes. That these ancient people were not 
wholly ignorant of textiles is evidenced by the occurrence 
of spindle-whorls associated with the pottery and shells 
of the mounds. 
In the New World we have ample evidence of the 
practice of this ancient industry at several places in Cen- 
tral America, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries. 
Here the species employed is Purpura patula, which is 
plentiful in the West Indies, and on rocks between high 
and low tide levels on both the Atlantic and Pacific 
coasts of Central America, It resembles the Purpura 
hemastoma of the Mediterranean, one of the species used 
by the ancient Tyrian dyers, and which, as_ previously 
mentioned, is still used by the Minorcan fishermen to 
mark their linen.” 
** Jbid., Appendix: No. 2542, 1882, 
** See Lacaze-Duthiers, ‘* Nat. Hist. of Purple of Ancients,” /’rec, Hoy. 
Soc. London, x , 1860, p. §83. 
