THE ANIMAL LIFE OF THE GROUP. 455 



the labeled specimens in the extensive collection of Hawaiian shells at the 

 Bishop Museum. 



Leis were occasionally made by the Hawaiians of certain species of cone 

 (leho) shells, but as a rule they were too scarce to be much used, although 

 there is a string several feet in length in the Bishop Museum and the author has 

 two such leis in his private collection. 



AuGEE Shells. 



The auger shells •'' are most apxjropriately named, for the long, tapering, 

 many flat-whorled spire at once characterizes them, while the small aperture, 

 notched in front, renders them easily placed in the single genus to which about 

 two dozen Hawaiian species belong. These hard, sharp-pointed shells were of 

 much use to the Hawaiians in vai'ious ways. They were formerly iised as drill 

 points in their crude but ingenious rotary drills. There they served their true 

 purpose of an auger, but the hard, sharp outer lip was equally effective as a 

 tool when iised as a scraper. They made excellent stoppers for the small- 

 necked gourds that once were used for the storage of water. 



Even the fragment of the crenulated auger shell" washed ashore is suffi- 

 cient for the identifieation of this large species in which the whorls are obtusely 

 nodulated below the suture.'' Fresh specimens are cream-colored, streaked 

 with chestnut between the nodules, and with three revolving rows of chestnut 

 spots on the body-whorl and two rows on the remainder of the spire. Adult 

 specimens are five inches in length. The spotted auger shell,* when fully 

 adult, is almost as large as the foregoing, but is orange-brown with a row of 

 large white spots just below the suture and a second row below the middle of 

 the body-whorl. The largest species occurring in Hawaii is Tereira maculata. 

 Specimens in the writer's collection vary from three to nine inches in length. 

 Large shells were much sought for by the natives, as they were fond of the 

 animal and used the chisel-like edge of the shell in scraping out the wooden 

 hulls of their canoes. 



Perhaps the Gould auger shell ^ is the commonest species found on our 

 Hawaiian sand-rimmed bays. It is a smaller species and one of a large num- 

 ber of this group of shells wliich is peculiar in that it has what appears to be 

 a double suture about tlie spire. This band is slightly nodulated, while the 

 body of each whorl is longitudinally plicated. The shell is cream.v-white 

 banded with very pale chestnut, and has three bands on the body-whorl. The 

 cancellated auger shell '" is smaller and has the narrow nodulous band white. 

 To the unpracticed eye it is otherwise very similar to the preceding form. 



A fifth form which is fairly common on sandy shores is Tercbra aciculina. 

 It is about an inch and a half in length, varies in color from deep chocolate to 

 pale ash color, and is white-banded at the suture, as well as on the free edge of 

 the body-whorl. Perhaps twenty species of auger shells can be secured in 



>]-a rremduta. 

 lerebra gouldi. 



