360 LITTOEINID^E. 



which is closed in the course of growth, and concealed 

 by the broad pillar-lip. The males are invariably smaller 

 than the females, and have the spire more pro- 

 duced. Clark described the tentacles as " setose." 

 May not this have been a lapsus typographies for 

 "slender"? Our remote ancestors appear to have 

 used the shells as personal ornaments. They made 

 necklaces of them, probably by rubbing the points on a 

 stone, and stringing them together, when thus perfo- 

 rated, with a fibre or sinew. An account is given in 

 Wilson's ' Prehistoric Annals of Scotland ' of the re- 

 mains of such necklaces having been found underneath 

 a Cromlech, which was discovered on levelling a tumulus 

 in the Phoenix Park at Dublin in 1837 ; this disclosed 

 two male skeletons, and beside the skull of each lay 

 perforated shells of L. obtusata in such a position that 

 they must have been placed around the necks of the 

 buried chieftains. A portion of the vegetable fibre with 

 which they had been strung together remained through 

 some of the shells. The only other relics found in the 

 sepulchre were a small fibula of bone and a knife or 

 lance-head of flint. Our patriotic poet, old Michael 

 Drayton, in the 20th song of his 'Polyolbion/ gave 

 these shell-ornaments a mythological air, when he de- 

 scribed the fair* Norfolcean 



" Nymphs trick' d up in tyers, the sea gods to delight." 



" With many sundry shells, the scallop large and fair, 

 The cockle small and round, the periwinkle spare, 

 The oyster wherein oft the pearl is found to breed, 

 The mussel which retains that dainty orient seed : 

 In chains and bracelets made, with links of sundry twists, 

 Some worn about their waists, their necks, some on the wrists." 



I believe that the Nerita littoralis of Linne and Fa- 

 bricius is a Scandinavian, Arctic, and North- American 



