WATERS OF WtSTERN INDIA. S3 



I may have classified it Wrongly. I have only got loose dead 

 valves of this shell. We havB several Arks, usually found as dead 

 shells on the -sands, and prettily marked. 



We have one very fine sea-mussel, MyiilUs smaragdina, the 

 Emerald-mussel, which earns its name by the green internal border 

 of its valves. There are larger mussels here and there, but taking 

 the average, it is a handsome species. It is here a shell of the 

 reefs, less gregarious than the European Mytilm edulis, and 

 wot common enough to be, like it, an important article of human 

 food or bait. We have one specimen in our Museum with a rough 

 pearl in it. This came to me alive from the Alibag reefs. 



The true Modiolce are less common, and our basalt rocks are 

 generally too hard for Lithodomvs ■ but 1 have found the latter in 

 Large old dead oyster shells. 



We have at least two of the Uniotitd<e or fresh -water pearl- 

 mussels, the same, apparently, as in the Deccan. One is rather thin 

 in the shell, and of a pale olive-green externally [i.e., in the 

 epidermis) ; the other is larger, thick and strong, with a black 

 epidermis, very like the British fresh-water pearl-mussel. I have 

 got no pearls in either here. They are pretty common ; and the 

 thin-shelled species, at least, is eaten. 



Of the strange and monstrous Tridacnus, Woodward gives one of 

 the queerest forms, Tridacna sqvaviosa, as from Bombay, on the 

 authority of Chemnitz. I never got it here, nor can my fishermen 

 recognize the figure. (They are usually pretty sharp at that) A 

 good many animals can be collected in Bombay that were born a 

 long way off, as we know, if any body does. 



The great Tridacna is commonly imported into Bombay from the 

 Chiua seas, as an ornament for gardens, and is said to be used as a 

 font in some Catholic churches. I don't happen to be a Catholic, 

 and do happen to object to makiug sights of Churches, so I don't 

 know whether this is true or not. The shell is quite big enough to 

 immerse a whole baby, but it belongs to the coral seas. 



Cockles we have, a few ; but they seem to want the flavour of the 

 North, and are most used in making lime to eat with beteluut. 



1 have not identified any Gyprinidm, but a better conchologist * 

 probably could. We certainly have one at least of the Veneridce, a 

 shell very like Cytherea Dione, only locally common. One of this 

 order is rather famous, the Venus mercenaria of the Atlantic States, 

 also known as a u clam," and by the Red Iudiau name of " Qua- 



