Industrial and Manufacturing Uses of Shells. 299 



artists. The Maories of New Zealand employ mussel 

 shells as tweezers to eradicate the hair from their face. 



Some of the cockle shells are made into pretty little pin- 

 cushions, and the shell-flower makers use them to form the 

 hop and other imitations. Common cheap pin-cushions 

 are made with the whelk and many other shells. 



Large quantities of small shells enter into trade use, for 

 making shell flowers and different articles of grouped 

 shells on boxes, etc. A great proportion of these are 

 British shells, collected freely on the beach in many parts 

 of our coasts, and most are sold by dealers under the name 

 of "grotto shells." 



The shells chiefly used for imitation flowers in forming 

 tulips, moss-roses, passion-flowers, anemones, hops, etc., are 

 parts of the valves of barnacles {Lepas anatiferd), Dentalium, 

 Oliva oryza, Marginella, Strigella pisiformis, Pholas dactylus 

 ^ndP.papyracea, Tellinas, Cardium, and others. It requires 

 only taste in the selection and adaptation of suitable shells 

 or parts of shells to form the petals of the flowers, and 

 colour is applied to the shell where necessary. 



Mr. Mayhew, in his " London Labour and the London 

 Poor," tells us that there are about I,CXX),CXXD of the com- 

 moner sorts of shells bought by the London street-sellers, 

 at 3J. the gross. They are retailed at id. apiece, or \2s. 

 the gross, when sold separately ; a large proportion, as is 

 the case with many articles of taste or curiosity rather than 

 of usefulness, being sold by the London hawker on country 

 rounds. Some of these rounds stretch halfway to Bristol, 

 or to Liverpool. 



Many shells are used for trumpets. Large species of 

 the genus Buccinum are employed by Italian herdsmen in 

 directing the movements of their cattle, and a variety of 

 sonorous sounds may thus be readily produced. They are 



