222 SHELLS AND MOLLUSCOUS ANIMALS. 



and which is of the most beautiful red purple that 

 can be conceived." 



But returning to the commoner objects of our 

 native shores, the accompanying figure will at once 

 recall to every one who has strayed along the sandy 

 margin of ocean the form of a familiar object. 

 Perchance it may recall the hours of childhood, 

 when we gathered up the cowries as treasures, and 

 long prized them for their beauty, and because 

 they told of velvety sands on which the waves 

 washed over them, making sweet music as they 

 passed. The large foreign cowries too, the Map 

 cowry with its brown or yellow marks and lines, 

 and the Spotted cowry, and the common white 

 Poached- egg cowry, and many others, well known 

 by their uses in adorning our chimney-pieces, even 

 to those who live inland, can bring their memories 

 of childhood, when we held them to the ear lis- 

 tening to the music of the sea shell, so like that 

 of the moaning surges, and dreamed that they told 

 of the rising tide. Our philosophic poet Words- 

 worth alluded to this : 



" 1 have seen 



A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract 

 Of inland ground, applying to his ear 

 The convolutions of a thick-lrpp'd shell, 

 To which in silence hush'cl, his very soul 

 Listen'd intensely; and his countenance soon 

 Brighten' d with joy ; for raurraurings within 

 Were heard ; sonorous cadences ! whereby 

 To his belief, the monitor express'd 

 Mysterious union with its native sea." 



The little white-ribbed cowries, which are plen- 

 tiful on our coast, are commonly called pigs, from 

 some fancied resemblance in their form to that 

 animal. The different common species are much 



