246 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



the rest of his frame has disintegrated long ago, only those eyes 

 now remain. Of this there is no doubt, for the brown marks on 

 the valves, are they not the stains of the blood shed in the 

 mighty conflict ? 



The most important Mollusc is undoubtedly the Chank 

 ( Turbinella rapa) , which is of special interest from its connection 

 with the religion of the Hindu. Diving for these shells forms a 

 fishery of considerable value in South India under the control of 

 the Government Fisheries Department, with its headquarters 

 at Tuticorin. The Chank is one of the weapons of Vishnu, who 

 is always represented as holding it in his left hand, while in his 

 right he grasps the " chuckram." The Chank is the symbol 

 both on the postage-stamps and on the coinage of Travancore, 

 while the coin is the chuckram. On the stamps of the first issue 

 of Cochin the Chank is represented along with other objects. 



The common Chank shell is dextral, i.e. the opening faces to 

 the right of the holder when looking into it with the apex of the 

 shell pointing upwards. The sinistral condition, i.e — with the 

 opening to the observer's left — is very rare. The " Cambridge 

 Natural History " (vol. iii, p. 100) records from Thurston that in 

 1887 a sinistral form obtained in Jaffna was purchased for 700 

 rupees. Popularly, the relative values of Chank shells are as 

 follows : The common form sells at about 1 rupee per dozen, 

 the sinistral is worth one thousand times this sum, while it is in 

 turn only a thousandth part of the value of a special form 

 (salanjalam), which again is only a thousandth part of the value 

 of the Chank which Vishnu himself wields, which is the only one 

 of its kind in the universe. On this enumeration, Vishnu's 

 Chank (panchajanyam) is worth a thousand million times the 

 value of a common Chank, a sum somewhere about £5,500,000 

 approximately. Of course, these two last shells are purely 

 mythical. 



The uses of the Chank are various. Many are cut trans- 

 versely into slices, which are used as bangles by Indian women. 

 The Chank is used in temples for pouring libations over the god. 

 It is a sacred emblem. The ordinary form is employed in all 

 Hindu homes as a feeding-cup for children, and also in cere- 

 monies as the vessel from which the libation is poured. It is 

 also used as a trumpet, both at weddings and at funerals, at 



