UNIVALVES. 139 
near the apex, an instrument is formed from which 
a variety of sonorous sounds may be produced. 
This kind of trumpet is still employed by Italian 
herdsmen for directing the motions of their cattle ; 
similar ones are also common in North Wales, 
where I have often heard their deep and hollow 
sounds, breaking on the silence of those Alpine 
districts, when used by the farmers in calling to 
their woodsmen. ‘Triton, the trumpeter of Nep- 
tune, is generally pictured with a shell of this de- 
scription in his hand, with which the ancient poets 
feigned that he convened the river deities around 
their monarch. It is wreathed like those called 
Sicankos, or sea-horn, common to India, Africa, and 
the Mediterranean, and still used as trumpets for 
blowing alarm, or giving signals; a custom thus 
elegantly noticed in the following animated lines :-— 
‘Then the roused youth impatient flew 
To the tower wall, where, high in view, 
A ponderous sea-horn hung, and blew 
A signal deep and dread as those 
The storm fiend at his rising blows, 
And there, upon the mouldering tower, 
Hath hung this sea-horn many an hour, 
Ready to sound o’er land and sea, 
The death-dirge of the brave and free.”,—Moore. 
Shells of the same description are used in Lithu- 
ania and Muscovy, where they are also applied to 
pastoral purposes. No sooner is a herdsman risen in 
