64 Beautiful Shells. 



Cones are eitlier plain or coronated^ tliat is, 

 crowned, Laving rows of projections round tlie top 

 of the sliell, like the second of the above figures ; 

 and this forms a mark of division into two classes, 

 although these classes often run, as it were, one 

 into the other, some plain cones having slight irre- 

 gularities of surface, and some crowned ones being 

 very nearly plain. 



The Common, or Ordinary Cone [Conus gene- 

 rails) J Plate Y., Fig. 1, is an elegantly-shaped and 

 beautifully-marked shell, having much the appear- 

 ance of being carved out of some rare kind of 

 marble. The Lettered Cone {Conus littoralis), Fig. 

 2, appears to be scribbled over with Hebrew, Greek, 

 or Arabic characters, and almost every species has 

 something peculiar in its markings; clouds and 

 veins, and dots, and stripes, and bands, of every 

 conceivable shape and mode of arrangement, may be 

 met with in these shells, whose surface, when the 

 epidermis or outer skin is removed, bears a beau- 

 tiful polish. Curious names have been given to 

 some of them, such, for instance, as the High 

 Admiral, Vice Admiral, and Guinea Admiral, which 

 indicate the rank they hold in the estimation of 

 collectors. From five to twenty guineas is the price 

 at which good and rare ones have been valued, and 



