414 PLINY'S NATUKAL HISTORY. [Book IX. 



There are two kinds of fish, that produce the purple colour ; 

 the elements in both are the same, the combinations only are 

 different ; the smaller fish is that which is called the " bucci- 

 num," from its resemblance to the conch by which the sound 

 of the buccinus or trumpet is produced, and to this circum- 

 stance it owes its name : the opening in it is round, with an 

 incision in the margin. 80 The other fish is known as the 

 " purpura," or purple, and has a grooved and projecting muz- 

 zle, which being tubulated on one side in the interior, forms 

 a passage for the tongue ; 82 besides which, the shell is studded 

 with points up to the very apex, which are mostly seven in 

 number, and disposed 83 in a circle ; these are not found on the 

 buccinum, though both of them have as many spirals as they 

 are years old. The buccinum attaches itself only to crags, 

 and is gathered about rocky places. 



(37.) Purples also have another name, that of "pelagiae : 84 

 there are numerous kinds of them, which differ only in their 

 element and place of abode. There is the mud 85 purple, which 

 is nurtured upon putrid mud ; and the sea-weed 66 purple, which 

 feeds on sea- weed ; both of which are held in the very lowest 

 esteem. A better kind is the reef-purple, 87 which is collected 

 oc the reefs or out at sea ; still, however, the colour extracted 

 from this is too light and thin. Then, again, there is the variety 

 known as the pebble-purple, 88 so called from the pebbles of 

 the sea, and wonderfully well adapted for dyeing ; and, better 



80 Cuvier says that the buccini, properly so called, have at the bottom of 

 the orifice of the shell an incision, which is the characteristic of the genus. 

 Our whelks are the best known specimen of the buccinum that we have. 

 They received their name, he says, from the buccinum, or buccina, the couch- 

 shell, (with which Triton is commonly painted), and that in its turn was so 

 called from its resemblance to a buccina, trumpet or herdsman's horn. 



82 It is n.ot the tongue, Cuvier says, that occupies this passage, but a 

 prolongation of the skin or coat that envelopes the animal, and its office 

 is to conduct to the branchiae the water necessary for the purposes of res- 

 piration. 



B3 This description, Cuvier says, is applicable to the Murex brandaris, 

 the Murex tribulus of Linnaeus, and other species that denote their growth 

 by the increase of the spirals furnished with spines. 



84 Or ; 'deep sea" purples. Dalechamps remarks, that Pliny here un- 

 wittingly gives to the purples in general, a name which only belonged tc 

 one species ; there being some that only frequent the shore, and are not 

 found out at sea. 



85 "Lutensis." 86 "Algensis." 



87 "Teeniensis." 8S "Calculensis." 



