490 COWRIES. 



one wonders her beautiful porcellaneous shell is not more 

 often scratched and broken, or her tender mantle torn and 

 bruised. Here also Stomatia loves to reside, crawling 

 with deliberate pace among the branching coral trees ; 

 but polished Stomatella prefers the dead banks of coral 

 debris within the reef, hunting in company with Parmo- 

 pliorus. Outside the reef, the hand-dredge will furnish 

 you with Marginetta, Fusus, Pleurotoma, PJiorus, Cla- 

 vatula, Strombus, Triphoris, and Rostettaria, the first 

 three genera affecting, however, much shallower water 

 than the others. In very deep water, Terebratula and 

 Cylichna, Nucula and Necera, will be met with, and reward 

 industrious dredging with new and singular forms. In 

 very deep, still water the shells are noticed to be very thin 

 and delicate. We obtained a Fusus off the Cape in 135 

 fathoms and from a soft, muddy, and sandy bottom, with 

 a very thin, light, fragile shell, and a brown epidermis, 

 covered with hair-like appendages ; and a new species of 

 Tricotropis was dredged also in deep water and from a 

 muddy bottom, in the bay of Nangasaki, Kiusu, Japan. 

 Although I have examined hundreds of Cyprcea tigris in 

 a living state, I never saw those changes of colour in the 

 mantle of the animal noticed by Mr. Stutchberry, junior, 

 who moreover states, that they crawl about usually ex- 

 posed to the sun ; while the result of my experience would 

 lead me to believe, that they almost invariably lurk in 

 holes of rocks or under loose stones, and among branch- 

 ing coral. The species of Cypraa vary considerably in 

 colour, thus the animal o^Ci/preea carneola is of a beautiful 

 red colour, with the foot and mantle covered with nu- 

 merous opaque, oval, white spots ; that of C. talpa is of a 



