Use of Cowry- shells for Currency, Amulets, etc. 189 



shells, ours being of the variety atava, as described by 

 Rochebrune,™ who says they come from the Cape Verde 

 Islands" (see Fig. C, p. 156). 



Notwithstanding Rochebrune's assertion, few students 

 of CyprcBa admit the possibility of the occurrence of living 

 C. moneta at the Cape Verde Islands, or indeed on any 

 l>ortion of the West African coast. The cited occurrences 

 there of this and the allied form, C. annulus, may be due 

 to accident. As already stated, enormous numbers of 

 these shells have been carried to this coast during the 

 last few centuries, and it is a well-known fact that ships 

 conveying this commodity have occasionally come to 

 grief, the cargo of shells being lost. Such an occurrence 

 is recorded to have taken place in the year 1873, when 

 the " Glendowra," a four-masted barque, homeward bound 

 from Manilla, was wrecked off the coast of Cumberland. 

 The " Glendowra " had on board some 600 bags of cowries 

 (C moneta and C. annulus) and missed the port of Liver- 

 pool through an error in her course, and, in the fog which 

 prevailed, ran ashore near Seascale. For years these 

 shells have been picked up, in good condition, on the 

 sandy shore between Seascale and the river Calder, and 

 collectors, unaware of their history, have regarded them 

 as indigenous to the British Isles.^"' 



Unfortunately, the precise distribution of the numerous 

 varieties of C. moneta is not very well known. Hence it 

 is not possible to be sure of the exact provenance of the 

 Roden mound cowries, rtor of those on the Cree dress. 

 It may be of interest, however, to note that Dr. J. Cosmo 

 Melvill, in his " Survey of the Genus Cypraea " {pp. cit., 

 p. 240), gives India as a locality for the var. atava. 



!»» Bull. Soc. Malac. de Fiance, i., 1884, p. 83, pi. i., fig. 4 (copied 

 in Fig. C of the present Chapter, p. 156). 



'»' See The Naturalist, London, Nov., 1890, p. 324. 



