SOUTHERN ASIA.—SHELLS. 53 
Voluta, Mitra, Cyprea, Turbinella, Dolium, Cassis, 
Strombus, and Harpa, are all inhabited by carnivorous 
Testacea, and that most of these genera have their 
principal metropolis in the great Indian Ocean. Of 
the beautiful group of Cones, for instance, nearly 200 
species have been named, yet scarcely more than ten 
are found beyond the Indian Ocean : Lamarck enume- 
rates sixty-two olives, yet five only belong to other seas. 
The cowries (Cyprea), and the Strombi, or wing-shells, 
are distributed much in the same proportion. The 
volutes, however, are nearly divided between Africa, 
India, and the Australian or Pacific Ocean. The dis- 
tribution of the Acephala, or bivalve shells, is much less 
marked ; but none that we re- 
member are common both to 
India and Africa ; while the 
union of Asiatic conchology 
with that of Australia, as may 
be expected from the situation 
of the two countries, takes place 
towards New Guinea and the 
adjacent islands. The famous 
wentletrap (fig. 16.) (Scaluria 
pretiosa Lam.), the spindle shells 
(Rostellaria Lam.), the hammer 
oysters (Malleus Lam.), the 
Ethiopian and other crowned volutes ( Voluta Ethiopica), 
are good illustrations of Oriental conchology. 
(73.) The paucity of fluviatile shells is truly sur- 
prising, and constitutes a singular character in the 
conchology of Asia. The rivers, inferior only to those 
of the New World, appear almost destitute of shell- 
fish ; for they have hitherto not given more than six 
or seven species to our cabinets, while from North 
America alone we are acquainted with more than 150: 
the genera are mostly the same, but the subgenus Dipsus 
(Leach) has hitherto only been brought from China. 
Terrestrial shells appear to bestill more rare ; but the genus 
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