172 SHELLS AND MOLLUSCOUS ANIMALS." 



. Most of the common shell -fish are of a greyish 

 or brownish white, or of a straw colour, sometimes 

 clouded with dark spots. Yet some of them ex- 

 hibit great beauty of tint, in which every shade of 

 red, and orange, and yellow, and blue, may be seen. 

 A writer in Loudon's Magazine of Natural History 

 says of our native Cowry (Cyprceaeuropcea), that 

 it is a most beautiful creature viewed from beneath, 

 with colours unrivalled among the order to which 

 it belongs. " The proboscis is dark vermillion ; 

 the tentacles yellowish red, spotted with yellow ; 

 the upper part of the foot streaked longitudinally 

 with yellow and brown, and the mantle greenish 

 brown, edged with brownish red ; but notwith- 

 standing, the shell is of a dull uniform white/' 



This writer tells us, too, of other shell-fish, which 

 have fins or lateral expansions elegantly speckled 

 with bright yellow, and the fleshy parts of the. 

 body marked with pink colour : while another is 

 dotted over with milk-white spots, and others are 

 mottled with black and white. Then the part 

 called the foot of the mollusk is, in some tropical 

 species, of blackish red ; in some, green ; in others 

 black ; in some, deep red, with faint designs resem- 

 bling those of the shell ; and in others it is bright 

 yellow and deep brown. The inmate of the 

 beautifully marbled harp shell, he says, " glories 

 in a rich vermillion-red skin." This writer also 

 quotes a passage from a paper of Broderip in the 

 Zoological Journal. ' " In the Mauritius," writes 

 this gentleman, "it is the amusement of the place 

 to watch over the trim apparatus of lines, hung 

 over some sand-bank to tempt the various species 

 of Oliva which there abound, or to wait for the 

 more rare approach of the harp shell, till the 



