ADAPTATIONS. 345 



Another species, with the same habits, the Mitra 

 circulata, is semi-opaque-white, faintly mottled with 

 light brown ; with the eyes at the outer base of the ten- 

 tacles, and black. 



The animal of Conohelix, of Swainson, does not differ 

 from that of Mitra. One species, probably new, I have 

 found buried rather deep in the soft, black mud, under 

 the roots of the trees in Mangrove swamps, above high- 

 water mark, in the Island of Basilan. The C. marmo- 

 rata is found in company with many species of Mitres, 

 crawling slowly over the sandy mud, in shallow places, 

 among the Islands of the Philippine Archipelago. 



St. Pierre, in his ' Studies of Nature,' * has very truly 

 remarked, that the animals of shells which crawl and travel, 

 and which can, consequently, choose their own asylums, 

 are in general those of the richest colours ; such are the 

 gaudily-tinted Nerites, and the polished marbled Cow- 

 ries ; the Olives richly ornamented with three or four 

 colours ; and the Harps, which have tints as rich as the 

 most beautiful Tulips; while among the bivalves the 

 vivacious Pectens coloured scarlet and orange, and a 

 host of other travelling shells are impressed with the 

 most lively colours. But those which do not swim, as 

 the Oysters, which are adherent always to the same rocks; 

 or those which are perpetually at anchor in the straits, 

 attached to the stones by their byssi, as the Pinnas and 

 Muscles ; or those which repose on the bosom of Madre- 

 pores, such as the Arcs; or those which are entirely 

 buried in the calcareous rocks, as the Lithodomi; or those 

 which immovably, by reason of their weight, pave the 

 * Vol. iii. p. 67. 



