392 SOME ETHNOGRAPHIC PHASES OF CONCHOLOGY. 



* There, now, you have a proof of my friendsliip.' My men Informed 

 me that these shells — a species of conidse — are so highly Yalued in 

 this quarter as evidences of distinction, that for two of them a slave 

 might he bought, and five would be considered a handsome price for 

 an elephant's tusk worth ten pounds." But even more curious is it 

 when such sea-wrought treasures are found employed not as the orna- 

 ments, but as the substitutes for dress, as among the natives of 

 Darnley Island, an island of volcanic origin, off the coast of New 

 Guinea, visited by Her Majesty's ship Fly in 1842-6. The natives 

 are described as fine, active, well-made fellows, rather above the 

 middle height, of a dark brown or chocolate color. " They had fre- 

 quently almost handsome faces, aquiline noses, rather broad about the 

 nostrils, well-shaped heads, and many had a singularly Jewish cast of 

 features. * * * They were entirely naked, but frequently 

 wore ornaments made of mother-of-pearl shells, either circular or 

 crescent-shaped, hanging round their necks. Occasionally, also, we 

 saw a part of a large shell, apparently a cassis, cut into a projecting 

 shield-shape, worn in front of the groin." Among these islanders also, 

 the larger sea shells have to perform the functions which are so 

 abundantly provided for, in the western Archipelago, by the Calabash. 

 Their adaptability for this purpose, indeed, naturally suggests such 

 an application of them wherever they abound, as in the case of the 

 Buecinum dolium, frequently in use by the fishermen and mariners of 

 the tropics as a convenient utensil with which to bale their boats. So 

 in like manner the graceful trumpet-like form, and richly variegated 

 colors, of the larger species of the Tritons, such as the beautiful 

 Triton variegatus, render their early and independent application as 

 horns or musical instruments, alike by the islanders of the Pacific and 

 the Carribean sea, sufiiciently natural and obvious. 



Though the rude natives of the Antilles, when first visited by the 

 Spaniards, possessed some natural advantages over the inhabitants of 

 the volcanic and coral islands of the Pacific, yet the large marine 

 shells with which the neighboring seas abound, constituted an im- 

 portant source for the raw material of their primitive implements and 

 manufactures. The great size, and the facility of workmanship of 

 the widely diffused pyrulce, tiirhinella, strombi, and others of the 

 larger shells, have indeed led to their application, wherever they 

 abound among uncivilized nations, to numerous purposes elsewhere 

 supplied from other sources. Of these the Charibs made knives. 



