88 NOTES ON POISONOUS CONES. 



Richard Owen, all three being born in the same year. That he 

 was a naturalist of the first order is proved by his classical 

 works, "Wanderings in New South Wales, Singapore, and 

 China" and "Gatherings of a Naturalist in Australia." It may 

 be mentioned that he was the first to capture the living Nautilus 

 (in 1829), and was an ardent student of the extinct marsupial 

 and avian fauna of the Darling Downs. He visited the Darling 

 Downs in 1871, and spent some time in collecting fossil bones. 



NOTES ON POISONOUS CONES. 



By MPS. C. COXEN, M.R.M.S. 



[Read before the Royal Society of Queensland, llth November, 1898.] 



In " Gatherings of a Naturalist," page 882, Dr. Bennett makes 

 the first reference with which I have met to- the poisonous 

 properties of some species of the genus Conus. He says : — 

 " The common Conus textilis of Linnaeus is found at Aneiteum 

 and other islands of the New Hebrides group ; the animal is 

 poisonous. On biting its captor, it injects a poisonous and 

 acrid fluid into the wound, occasioning the part to swell, and 

 often endangering the life of the injured person." 



This account is borne out by a specimen received from 

 Tanna. My late husband sent £2 to a missionary at Tanna for 

 shells. In one of those (a Conus) which he received from the 

 missionary is a memorandum — written, I suppose, by the sender 

 —stating that the animal sometimes bites its captor, and injects 

 a fluid poison into the wound which causes death in a few hours 

 through contraction of the throat. The shell and memorandum 

 are on the table. Again, in an article by Messrs. H. Cross and 

 E. NarieJ three species are mentioned, viz., C. tulipa, Linn., 



J Catalogue des Cones de la Nouvelle-Cal6donie et des lies qui en. 

 dependent : Journal de Conchyliologie, Paris, October, 1874. 



