210 NATURAL HISTORY OF OUR SHORES 



Buccinum undatum (the whelk) is too common to need 

 description. It is common all around our coast, and lives 

 both on rough and sandy bottom, from low spring tide 

 level outwards. 



Cyprcea europea. The pretty little " Cowrie," with which 

 our earliest recollection of shells is very generally as- 

 sociated. This lives on rocky shores, preferring places 

 where it has the shelter of overhanging boulders or rock 

 crevices. It is white, with a purple blush on the dorsal 

 side and spots of a deeper shade of the same colour. Shore - 

 gathered specimens have as a rule lost these markings, and 

 also much of the delicate sculpturing. In St Clement's 

 Bay, Jersey, it is very common. It has the habit of loosing 

 its hold upon the rock, and allowing itself to hang, spider- 

 like, from a thread of mucus. Numbers may thus be seen 

 hanging from the roofs of little grottoes at low- tide level, 

 in suitable districts. 



Transitional between the forms we have just dealt with 

 and the Nudibranchi, or shell-less molluscs, are those in 

 which the shell is more or less completely enclosed by 

 lobes of membrane. They form a sub-division termed the 

 Tectibranchiata. Of these the best known is : 



Aplysia punctate- (the " Sea-hare "Fig. 90). This is 

 erratic in its occurrence on the shore, sometimes occurring 

 in great profusion, then being for a long period absent. 

 It is a peculiar and conspicuous sluglike animal, from four 

 to six inches in length. The colour varies, according to 

 locality, from olive-green, through various shades of brown, 

 to purple. On this coast it is invariably of a deep, almost 

 black, purple, with a velvety appearance, and usually 

 finely speckled with white. It has four stout, earlike 

 tentacles, and the side lobes project, flaplike, above the 

 back, and partly cover the shell. The shell is thin, horny, 

 and transparent, in size and shape like the bowl of an egg- 

 spoon, of a pale brown colour. 



