CYPILEA. 403 



stated, and Lamarck believed that, as the animal in- 

 creased in size, it was obliged to leave its shell, in order 

 to make a new and more capacious one. The notion of 

 Sowerby and Reeve, that Cypraa can absorb the outer 

 lip and form another, is not less fanciful. Such hypo- 

 theses were founded on the circumstance that full-grown 

 shells are often smaller than half-grown specimens ; but 

 the difference of size in individuals of the present family 

 offers a simple explanation. In a very curious report 

 by Dr. Briickmann of Brunswick (1722) on the " Concha 

 Venerea" and another shell, it is mentioned that, by 

 applying the former closely to the ear, " sie konnten das 

 Meer brausen horen.^ The embryology of Cyprcea must 

 be somewhat anomalous; for Mr. A. Adams observed 

 at Singapore some fry, supposed to belong to C. annulus, 

 adhering in masses to the mantle of that mollusk, or 

 swimming (some in rapid gyrations, and others with 

 abrupt jerking movements) by means of their head- 

 lobes. 



Some of the ancient Greeks called this well-known 

 shell xolpo?, and the Romans porous or porculus ; the 

 old English name is "gowrie" (now ' ' cowry "), and 

 the French " pucelage " or " pou-de-mer." 



While tropical seas are enriched by so many and such 

 beautiful species, our own has but a single puny repre- 

 sentative of the genus. 



TVwiV J'^, 



f* *] 7 CYPR^EA EUROP^E'A*, (Montagu) \>\ 9 1 . 



C. Europcea, Mont. Test. Br. (ii.) p. 88;' F. & H. iii. p. 495, pi. cxiv. A. 

 f. 6-9, and (animal) pi. NN. f. 5-7. 



BODY of various hues, the predominant ones being yellow, 

 brown, and pink ; it is sometimes marked with transverse 

 stripes or lines : mantle very large, spread (in the adult) over 



* European. 



