SOUTHERN ASIA. SHELLS. 



53 



Valuta, Mitra, Cypreea, 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 {Cyprcea), and the Stromhi, 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. l6.) {Scalaria 

 pretiosa Lam.), the spindle shells 

 {Rostellaria Lam.), the hammer 

 oysters (Malleus Lam.), the 

 Ethiopian and other crowned volutes ( Valuta 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 be still more rare ; but the genus 



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