206 NATURAL HIS TOUT. 



Cyprtea shells are worn as a head-dress by the natives of New Guinea. The time would fail in which 

 to tell all the various methods used in applying shells as ornaments to the head, dress, and person. 

 Every book of travels in Africa, America, or the South Sea Islands teems with such illustrations. 

 Nor does India furnish an exception to the rule ; for there the female children have their arms and 

 ankles, from infancy, encircled with broad shell-bands, cut from the whorls of the great Turbinella 

 pyruni, and the Sepoy troops wear necklaces, made from the canal of the same shell, as part of theii 

 parade uniform. 



One hundred and fifty species of living Cyprcea have been described. They occur in all the 

 warmer seas of the globe, but are most abundant in the Old World. 



The genus Trivia is peculiarly interesting to us, as it includes the only Cowry found upon the 

 British coast the Trivia europtva. The shells of this genus are sometimes covered with transverse 

 raised ribs across the back, as in Trivia europcea and T. pedicidus ; and sometimes with elevated 

 tubercles, as in T. pustulosa ; or with both, as in T. stapliylcea. Thirty -five species are recorded; they 

 are all small forms. Near the edge, at low water, you may sometimes see our little British Cyprcea 

 crawling on the sandy bottom. The animal is not more than half an inch long, of a bright orange 

 colour, duskily banded, or yellow with orange edge, or all of a pale pink colour. In front are two 

 slender tentacles, with small black eyes near their bases ; between these horns is a small tube bent 

 upwards this is the siphon. The shell is wrapped up in the two lobes of the gaily-coloured mantle ; 

 the foot is square in front and very long and pointed behind. At the slightest touch the foot and 

 mantle-lobes, feelers, and siphon all disappear, and the little flesh-coloured ribbed shell alone remains, 

 all the soft parts being contracted within the narrow-toothed mouth of the shell, leading us to wondei 

 how so tiny a shell is able to accommodate so large an animal. 



The pretty little shells belonging to the genus Erato differ from Jfargiiiella, with which they 

 have been confounded, in not having a marginal varix, or swelling, and from Cyprcea, in having distinct 

 plaits on the columella the outer lip, too, is thickened towards the middle and denticulated within. 



One species (Erato Icevis) is found 

 on the North British coast, and 

 also in the Mediterranean. Eleven 

 species are described from the 

 West Indies and China. 



OVULUM VOL. The shells of the genus 



Ovulum (the " China shell ") are 



never ornamented with rich and varied colours, like those of the Cowry tribe, but are usually white, 

 pink, pale violet, or yellow, without exhibiting any particular markings or pattern. The shell is like 

 Cyprcea, but the inner lip is smooth. Ovulum volva (" the Weaver's Shuttle ") has the aperture of 

 the shell drawn out into a long canal at each end. The foot is narrow, and adapted for clasping 

 the round stems of the Gorgonice, on which the animal feeds. Thirty-four species are described, 

 inhabiting the warmer seas of the West Indies, Mediterranean, China, and West America. Two 

 species (0. patula and 0. acuminata] are met with on English shores. 



