1864.] ON A SPECIES OF DENTALIUM. 137 
this, in the absence of distinct specific characters, I should hesitate 
very much making distinct species of them. However that may be, 
the history of the specimens brought by Mr. Lord is very interest- 
ing; and these few observations must be considered only as intro- 
ductory to the very instructive notes drawn up by that gentleman, a 
perusal of which will prove the best apology for these brief prelimi- 
nary remarks. 
Notes on the above, by Mr. J. K. Lord. 
It is somewhat curious that these shells (Entalis pretiosus, Nut- 
tall, sp.; Entalis vulgaris?) should have been employed as money 
by the Indians of North-West America—that is, by the native tribes 
inhabiting Vancouver’s Island, Queen Charlotte’s Island, and the 
mainland coast from the Straits of Fuca to Sitka. Since the intro- 
duction of blankets by the Hudson’s Bay Company, the use of these 
shells as a medium of purchase has to a great extent died out, the 
blankets having become the money, as it were, or the means by which 
everything is now reckoned and paid for by the savage. A slave, a 
canoe, or a squaw is worth in these days so many blankets; but it 
used to be so many strings of Dentalia, In the interior, east of the 
Cascade Mountains, the Beaver-skin is the article by which every- 
thing is reckoned—in fact, the money of the inland Indian. 
The value of the Dentalium depends upon its length: those re- 
presenting the greater value are called, when strung together end to 
end, a “ Hi-qua;” but the standard by which the Dentalium is cal- 
culated to be fit for a ‘“ Hi-qua” is, that twenty-five shells placed 
end to end must make a fathom, or six feet, in length. At one time 
a ‘‘Hi-qua”’’ would purchase a male slave, equal in value to fifty 
blankets, or about £50 sterling. The shorter and defective shells 
are strung together in various lengths, and are called “‘ Kop-kops.” 
About forty ‘ Kop-kops” equal a “ Hi-qua”’ in value. These 
strings of Dentalia are usually the stakes gambled for. 
The shells are generally procured from the west side of Vancou- 
ver’s Island, and towards its northern end ; they live in the soft sand, 
in the snug bays and harbours that abound along the west coast of 
the island, in water from three to five fathoms in depth. The habit 
of the Dentalium is to bury itself in the sand, the small end of the 
shell being invariably downwards, and the large end close to the 
surface, thus allowing the fish to protrude its feeding- and breathing- 
organs. This position the wily savage has turned to good account, 
and has adopted a most ingenious mode of capturing the much-prized 
shell. He arms himself with a loug spear, the haft made of light 
deal, to the end of which is fastened a strip of wood placed trans- 
versely, but driven full of teeth made of bone, resembling exactly a 
long comb with the teeth very wide apart. A squaw sits in the 
stern of the canoe and paddles it slowly along, whilst the Indian with 
the spear stands in the bow. He now stabs this comb-like affair 
into the sand at the bottom of the water, and after giving two or 
three stabs draws it up to look at it; if he has been successful, per- 
