THE LITTLE FIG-SHELL. 



373 



technically called " varices," upon the shell, one row being placed on each side. There 

 are about fifty species of Eanella, spread over all the warm seas. Like the preceding 

 shells, they prefer the shallow to the deep waters, and may be found at almost all depths 

 from the bare rocks left waterless by the receding tide to a depth of eighteen or twenty 

 fathoms. 



The colour of the Frog-shell is not very striking at a distance, but elegant and delicate 

 when closely examined. The surface of the shell is variously mottled with brown of 

 differing tones and intensities, and is traversed by multitudinous rows of tiny raised dots 

 or tubercles of pure white, like porcelain. 



The animal of this shell is represented as crawling, for the object of displaying the 

 long tentacles, the position of the eyes, the broad foot, and the small oval operculum, with 

 its layers of bony substance, and its nucleus placed at one side. 



ON the right hand is shown the BULL-FEOG SHELL, exposed so as to show the roughly 

 tuberculated surface, with its deep hollows and bold ridges of thick shelly substance, 

 together with the projecting horns on either side. The colour of this shell is extremely 

 variable. In the handsomest specimens the ground colour is creamy white, largely 

 mottled with bold tints of deepest brown and purest white. But in many instances the 

 entire shell is of a very pale tone, yellow predominating, and the brown entirely 

 subservient, and presenting the same contrast to the full-coloured shell as the albino to 

 the negro. 



THE third figure represents the SPIKED FROG-SHELL, a name which, in this instance, 

 is partially appropriate on account of the sharp and rather long spines or projections 

 with which the shell is furnished. None of these shells are of very great size, their 

 average length being about two inches. 



As the family of the Muricidae is a very large one, and comprehends a vast variety of 

 curious forms, which, though differing in many unimportant details, are yet identical 

 in those characteristics which determine the genus, it is needful to illustrate it by several 

 examples of these apparently discrepant forms. 



LITTLE FIG-SHELL. Pyrula ficus 



In the accompanying illustration is given a very pretty shell, termed indifferently the 

 LITTLE FIG or LITTLE PEAR SHELL, its general outline being thought sufficiently pear or 

 fig like to warrant the application of the name. Both scientific names refer to this far- 

 fetched resemblance, pyrula signifying a little pear, smdjicus meaning a fig. 



