•VOL. XV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 253 



be somewhat allayed, from what it was after the first washing. He made large 

 letters on so many pieces of cloth, as there are distinct colours, and put them 

 in a book, to keep them from the air; then several months after, showed the 

 various colours remained distinct as before; yet by often opening the book, 

 and so exposing them to the air, all the colours, excepting the last two, before 

 washing either, would fade ; but all the colours being washed, will become one 

 and the same. While the cloth, so written on, lay in the sun, it would yield 

 a very strong fetid smell, like garlic and asafcetida mixed together. 



The shells are of various colours, but most of them white; some are red, 

 when newly taken off the rocks; some yellow; others of both these colours; 

 some a blackish brown ; many of a sandy colour; and some few striped with 

 white and brown parallel lines. 



It seems to be a kind of amphibious animal, alternately living in both ele- 

 ments every tide : being out of their native place, and in want of such viscissi- 

 tudes, they take this course to find the air; when any of them are put into a 

 vessel of sea -water, for in fresh they soon expire, after they have lain for some 

 time on the bottom of the vessel, they creep up to the surface of the water, 

 and by extending a kind of lip, with their opercula, they cling to the side of 

 the vessel or pan, with about half that part above the water, sometimes creep- 

 ing down under it, and returning again to their station, between wind and 

 water. 



There are many sorts of this purple fish, differing in size, structure, and 

 colour of the shell, according to the nature of the sea-grounds, depth or 

 shallowness of water, rocks, gravel, and mud, as also according to the latitude 

 where they are found ; they differ also in the variety of the colours of the 

 tinging juice in their veins, as black, livid, violet, deep sea-green, light and 

 deep red, amethystine, &c. But the best of all were found in the Tyrian seas, 

 near that island on which the famous city of Tyre was built; this was celebrated 

 and prized above all the rest for its rich colour, called in former ages by divers 

 names, as Ostrum Sarranum, Pelagium, Venenum Tyrium, Purpurissum, Flores 

 Tyriani, &c. Almost all authors agree, that the juice lies in a certain vein in 

 the fish, and some mention it to be white and viscous, as this of ours is. It 

 were to little purpose, to give the history at large of all the purpuras; and when 

 and how first discovered by Phoenix the son of Agenor, 2d king of the Phoeni- 

 cians, by means of a shepherd's dog devouring one of the fishes, and colouring 

 one of his lips with that excellent dye: by which its antiquity appears. In suc- 

 ceeding ages it received improvements, to the time of Pliny, when it seems to 

 have arrived at its highest perfection ; when the Roman artists, in preparations 

 of that tinging juice, for dying the robes and other vestments of emperors, 



