32 EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSKS. 



or handle being used for taking the snails (cochlea:) out 

 of their shells and eating them, and the broader part 

 for eating eggs, etc. This may be doubted, but a spoon 

 could scarcely resemble a snail-shell, and Martial says 

 (xiv. 121), " Sum cochleis habilis, nee sum minus utilis 

 ovis/'' 



At the meeting of the Ethnological Society, March 4thj 

 1862, Mr. G. W. Earl gave an interesting description 

 of the singular Malayan shell-mounds, which were formed 

 entirely of cockle-shells. He described them as exist- 

 ing in the province of Wellesley, near the Mudah river; 

 that they were about five or six miles from the sea, 

 situated on sandy ridges that appeared formerly to bound 

 the narrow estuaries communicating with the ocean. 

 He adds that these mounds of cockle-shells are about 

 18 to 20 feet high, and that the Chinese immigrants 

 have largely employed them as a source of lime. 

 These mounds are supposed to be of great antiquity, 

 from the fact of the shells being partly cemented toge- 

 ther by crystallized carbonate of lime, the result of the 

 very slow action of atmospheric and aqueous influences. 

 At the bottom of one mound, which contained 20,000 

 tons of shells, a human pelvis was found ; and other re- 

 mains and stone-implements have been obtained from 

 the Chinese lime-burners. Mr. Earl attributes the for- 

 mation of these mounds to the Semangs, a diminutive 

 Negro race now sparingly scattered over the surround- 

 ing country, but who were evidently very numerous 

 and widely spread in former times.* 



In Grey's ' Australia,' vol. i., mention is made of a 

 hill of broken shells, which it must have taken centuries 

 to form, situated between Port George the Fourth, and 



* ' Intellectual ObserTer,' toI. i. p. 239. 



