370 SHELLS. [Cuar. XI. 
sunrise to fish, and at evening return to their solitary 
breeding-places remote from the beach. The strand is 
literally covered with beautiful shells in rich profusion, 
and the dealers from Trincomalie know the proper season 
to visit the bay for each particular description. .The en- 
tire coast, however, as far north as the Elephant Pass, is 
indented by little rocky inlets, where shells of endless 
variety may be collected in great abundance.! Dur- 
ing the north-east monsoon a formidable surf bursts 
upon the shore, which is here piled high with mounds 
cf yellow sand; and the remains of shells upon the 
water mark show how rich the 
sea is in mollusca. Amongst them 
are prodigious numbers of the 
\ ubiquitous violet-coloured Jan- 
thina?, which rises when the 
ocean is calm, and by means of 
its inflated vesicles floats lightly on the surface. 
The trade in shells is one of extreme antiquity 
in Ceylon. The Gulf of Manaar has been fished from 
the earliest times for the large chank shell, Turbinella 
IANTHINA, 
1 In one of these beautiful little ripple of the waves. On the 
bays near Catchavelly, between slightest alarm, the water is dis- 
Trincomalie and Batticaloa, [found charged, the dise collapses into its 
the sand within the wash of the original dimensions, and the shell 
sea literally covered with mollusca and its inhabitant disappear to- 
and shells, and amongst others a gether beneath the sand. 
species of Bullia (B. vittata, I 
think), the inhabitant of which 
has the faculty of mooring itself 
firmly by sending down its mem- 
branous foot into the wet sand, 
where, imbibing the water, this 
organ expands horizontally into a = 
broad fleshy dise, by which the BULLIA VITTATA, 
animal anchors itself, and thus 2 Janthina communis, Krauss, 
secured, collects its food in the and L prolongata, Blainv. 
